"Why don't you stay in a hostel?" my brother innocently asked while discussing my lodging plans for Berlin. "It's a great way to meet people, and we had so much fun last time."
What I will be reminding my brother of shortly is "last time" for us was over a decade ago. And, as it turns out, the average age of hostel dwellers has remained exactly the same.
Yesterday was Halloween, and no costume was necessary. After spending a low-key week in an Airbnb, I'm now here in an eight-person dormitory, clearly passing as an alien from outer space: some strange 35-year-old business owner with a headset who happens to be on a permanent gap year.
The place is swarming with Gen Z renegades... The minimally-dressed actress from New York who just needs to "figure it out already." A bubbly 18 year old from the Netherlands who's clubbing her way through a gap year. A charmingly awkward couple who wants nothing more than to make everyone pies (while simultaneously learning how to bake). And then of course there's me, grumbling about the crappy WiFi and a backache.
No matter, though. Berlin has been very comfortable overall. After a perfectly slow week, my work is starting to ramp back up with instructional design and onboarding for several new training and coaching clients. In the meantime, I'm pulling together a team of artists to brainstorm how their craft might inform corporate leadership and training. It's a series I've been wanting to curate, but I needed to come back to it with fresh eyes after "Ingrid" debuted.
I have to give it to the youth who are "finding themselves" here in Berlin: it does seem to be the city for transformation. Everywhere you look there's graffiti upon graffiti upon graffiti. As one local explained, an artist may create street art to last just long enough to take a photograph with it. Then, it's expected that someone else will show up and paint right over their piece.
I suppose if one blinks for too long, they might open their eyes to an entirely different Berlin. It's that energy, it seems, that attracts the entire world here, making the city German only by a technicality.
So, to the endless cycle of finding yourself and losing yourself again...
Fröhliches Halloween!
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