Of
Hilmar Klute
When you drive around Berlin on the Ringbahn, even if you are over fifty you may have the bold thought for a brief moment that you can start all over again here. If Berlin were thrown up and smashed on the ground, every fragment would be a world of its own. The streets in Prenzlauer Berg with the cinnamon smell from the cinnamon smell machine that every better bakery has in operation. The balconies in Wedding, full of electronic waste and German flags. In Charlottenburg, there are journalists and architects who are dodgy from the rest of the city’s glamor, who loll in front of the Paris bar with very bad food and go-so-chablis and distribute cents to the junkies sneaking by. The summer freshness feeling at the Schlachtensee, the Hanoverian normality coquetry of Moabit, the backyard paradises of Schöneberg and the peaceful book caves in Friedenau. Every mood, every human longing has its place here. Where better to live than in Berlin? Answer: everywhere.