Wed, Jul. 7
... In a rich man's world
The strangest thing about Berlin is that it's such an old city, but everything is so new. So much was destroyed during the war that everything has been rebuilt in the past 60 years, and it's this strangest juxtaposition of old and new, side by side, much more than any other European city we've been in.
This is the only city where we've run into construction. It seems to me that most cities have been established for so long, especially in the downtown areas, that any work is restoration or renovation, not out and out building. Here, it's being built.
History is so much more recent. The biggest world events in this city have happened within the past 15 years, and we know that it's momentous history. It's not the kind that you look at in retrospect and realize, "That was bigger than I thought it was going to be!" The Berlin Wall is within the memory of most citizens here. This isn't something abstract and read about only in a textbook. This is real life.
It's exciting and overwhelming to be somewhere like this. I don't even know what to compare it to--the sense is like nothing else.
This computer isn't opening the hotmail site. Frustrating, but whatever. I'll check it tomorrow, and it won't be the end of the world. It's nice to have access every day, and being on the road like this, it's definitly a necessity to have it more often than not, but every day is somewhat of a luxury.
This whole travelling with the family deal is interesting, too. I don't have a frame of reference for it, because the last family vacation I was on was when I was 15. That's been just a few years! My little brother is the same age now that I was when we took the last vacation. That just gives some sort of a surreal feeling to it.
I alternate between being shocked at how much freedom and say they give us, because it doesn't match my previous experience with these trips, and being frustrated because I feel like a little kid, because for the first time in 4 years, I'm spending an extended amount of time with my entire family. The 5 of us haven't spent this much time in the same place at the same time in years, and there's a sense in which it feels like backtracking.
But then I remember that this is it--the last hurrah--and I try to enjoy it and remember that it's only 2 weeks until I'm home.
infinite || abyss
posted at 9:19 p.m.
