Young, scruffy, insouciant Indian boy is walking by the greasy canal with his parents. Evidently he’s been showing them Berlin. Lifting his shapeless hand in a vague gesture towards the old, carved terraces he says: If I were ever rich – the slight rush of his r’s making it clear he quite expects this to […]
On the subway I sat down next to a guy who was remarkably good looking. Tall and well set up, he sat at his ease, one leg crossed over the other and his knee splayed. I glanced sideways at him as I got my work out of my bag: Mmm, cute! Well dressed, too, in […]
My parents have a spare room which they have been eager to put to use as Dad’s medical expenses mount, so I offered to manage it for them as an Airbnb listing. Airbnb has been so problematic in rapidly gentrifying areas of Berlin that it’s actually been outlawed: developers were buying up whole buildings and […]
Berlin children are adorable when it rains. I came upon a flock of them, holding hands in pairs and stopped dead at a cobbled intersection wearing bright and varied rainslicks and little hoods. In the winter one sees them bundled in snowsuits, a hundred cossetted little snowmen. Their mamas and papas dress them in primary […]
Giggling to myself at what seems a very typical Berlin expatriate conversation I just passed. American accent. Eight uses of “I/my” within two sentences. One “I need to find,” one “animation,” one “my Dad.” Everywanna’s an artist. Hey I just made that up. This week life has handed me lemons & I’ve made lemonade. Actually […]
The problem of hipsters. Nobody is one, yet everyone complains about them. It’s a bit like environmental damage: everybody thinks someone else needs to change. I am listening to the couple at the next table lament how hip this neighbourhood has become. On this leafy street they can no longer find a seat, on a […]