Late at night, on the weekends when I can’t sleep and everything seems so peaceful, I get really nostalgic for Berlin.

I miss my friends and my home and finding weird foods like Pizza-Suppe. I miss not being sexually objectified when I go out to dance. I miss 3 PM cab rides home with sunglasses on, passing happy families out on Hermannplatz. I miss sitting on the benches at CDV and dancing next to the speakers and getting into Mate Vodka challenges with the bartenders. I miss the naked man across the street and shitty Chinese delivery that came with free plum wine. I miss Berghain, I miss the garden. I miss the Turkish market on Maybachufer and biking through Treptow and barbecues in Görlitzer Park. I miss cheap falafel and döner. I miss Berlin.

I’m really happy to be in New York, though. I just don’t think it’s a forever thing. I’m not sure I want to go back to Berlin, but I can’t deny that I spent possibly the most formative time of my life there, and it’s deeply shaped how I view the world. This experience was out of this world, and I’m exceptionally lucky to have experienced it. I just miss it a lot when it’s 4 AM in Berlin and 10 PM here and I know that something amazing is happening in that city and I’m not there.

I ordered two shirts from ASOS and they’re both way too big which is a serious bummer, and they’re all out of everything smaller, so off to return city we go.