The first month here was weird. For one, I really did not know any German, and I couldn’t navigate my way around the U-Bahns and S-Bahns (which, what the difference is between the two I will never understand). Some people on the U8 scared me, and it just felt so, so foreign. It took me two months to even go to ku’damm and to even begin to understand that life doesn’t just happen during the day but spills into the night. You go to places you wouldn’t even think of going, and you’re at these places at times when most other cities are asleep. In Berlin, the city breathes life into you, and before you know it, you’re part of its wild, eclectic rhythm.

I like to say that in this city, you don’t find things to do, they find you. You’re drawn into unexpected situations that you’d never planned for. Take, for example, the time I ended up in a (swinger) club on a Monday night. Definitely wasn’t on my bucket list. But that’s Berlin for you—a place where people go to be themselves and to mess around. It’s a city that thrives on spontaneity and freedom, where the norm is to embrace the unexpected.