Member-only story
Berlin, Berlin: How does your choice of home impact your life?
I’m German, and I just went to Berlin for the first time in my adult life.
“This is like traveling back in time”, I thought.
I had just landed at Berlin-Tegel (TXL) airport. It was built in 1948, and still looks that way. No nonsense, no modern stuff, not even a train that goes there. We’re in the capital of Germany, one of the most developed countries of the world! Unbelievable. That’s what Germany must have looked like 30 years ago.
Hopping onto public transport, the same comes to mind. It’s old. The buildings I see are old. But they’re also beautiful, and the trains run every three minutes (once you get to one from the airport). Hey, maybe this isn’t too bad.
The last time I had been to Berlin before was in 2004. I had only heard about it (as in, “you’re an entrepreneur, why in the world are you not in Berlin?”), but never actually seen it through the eyes of an adult.
My preconception of Berlin was as follows: it’s a huge, dirty city, where partying day and night has a very high social standing, and drugs are very common. It’s also a city full of people who say that…
