It was the evening of the Love Parade, 2002 in Berlin, Germany. I stood with a childhood friend in the queue for the club Tresor in the then derelict wastelands between Leipzigerstraße and Potstdamer Platz. My friend began conversing with a nice young Dutch gentleman who had traveled specifical… Read full post »

Betrayal:


Election day, May 26th 2007:

I have returned home from Berlin, Germany(the city where I live) to Dublin, Ireland, the city where I was born specifically to vote in the Irish parliamentary elections. What I am doing is not legal and my parents have even colluded in it – in Ireland only… Read full post »

Last night I found myself stitting in kino 8 at Cinemaxx in Potsdamer Platz, watching a black and white movie made in Potzdamer Platz in the late 1980s, and reminiscing about an evening and morning I spent just down the road in Leipziger Straße at the end of my first year…

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It is February in Berlin and outside the sky is filled with fast-moving grey clouds that bring us sometimes-slushy rain. I am unemployed and officially penniless, having spent a substantial part of Monday demonstrating to the state of Berlin that I have no resources whats… Read full post »

Last summer I turned 30 and agreed to accept a present from/deal with my parents - they would pay for my driving lessons, and I would carry through on the whole thing.

I understand the paying thing is a big deal. I live in Germany and am learning to drive here,… Read full post »

The last time I wrote, I was reflecting on how I ended up here. This question has many facets.

One could start by asking 'how did any of us end up here'. Here's what I mean.  This past weekend I hung out with a mixed group of europeans my… Read full post »

When did any of this begin?

With the coat? When this city took me as one of her own? The day I left and knew I was making a mistake? The evenings in the north, looking out the window and pining for here? The day I decided to come back,… Read full post »