I'll miss you, Berlin.

I make excellent use of the notes app on my laptop and phone: I write names of restaurants, funny things my friends say, places I want to go, amounts of money I owe people, poems that pop into my head...

October 11, 2018 at 4:31 PM:

When I look at an old picture, I can smell it. I can feel it. I feel how I felt, what I was thinking about, it has a taste.

I wonder how my pictures from study abroad will taste, how they’ll smell, how they’ll make me feel.

Will I taste the salt on my cheeks after a late night of crying? Will I smell the smoke in Tresor and feel the cigarette smell soak into my clothing? Will I cry as I re-experience glancing casually over to my right to be shocked by the strong presence of the eiffel tower?

I don’t want to think of a time when this is the past.

---

I'll miss you, Berlin.

I'll miss sitting alone on the lounge chairs outside of the residence: at least 10 PM, silent, pitch black, staring up at the stars, losing my hearing to "Ribs" by Lorde.

I'll miss the same situation except with company: I'll miss how we all sit together & have fun hehe, or this situation except in the park or on top of the slide in that random playground.

I'll miss carrying bottles and openly drinking as we walk down the street, feeling kind of badass not having to hide it yet knowing that it's nothing to feel badass for outside of the US.

I'll miss German beer, having grown to truly love it as only German beer can make one do. I'll miss it as I inevitably begin to forget the distinct differences between Gösser radler and Berliner Kindl radler.

I'll miss running across the street to Lidl and buying cheap wine. I always wanted to branch out and try new brands, but that one we had our first night always calls my name.

Speaking of wine, I'll miss Christmas markets and Glühwein. They are unspeakably beautiful and heartwarming in Berlin, a godsend as the sun begins to disappear at 3 PM.

I'll miss that people aren't afraid to spend hours outside regardless of how hot or cold it is. I even saw outdoor restaurant seating at Christmas markets--in December! And it was packed!

I'll miss being 20 and shamelessly carefree in a way one only can as a 20-year-old in Berlin.

I'll miss being left unquestioned as I enter clubs, order at bars, and live my life without judgement of my age.

I'll miss the variety of clubs, from Gaga night at SchwuZ to concerts at Berghain.

I'll miss showing up to the pregame in pajamas with no intention of going out, then by some turn of events throwing on heels and lipstick and glitter and eventually ending the night at 5 AM at Mustafa's with the most amazing Gemüsekebap of my life.

Oh man, I'll miss Mustafa's.

I'll miss the freedom and the feeling of breathless excitement in your clubs.

I'll miss the way the bass would replace my heartbeat and the way the rhythms and beats would slowly mesh into one another, making me excited in a way I wouldn't have expected from techno music.

I'll miss the strobe lights that turned the club into a stop-motion film, turning my friends into works of art (as if they weren't already).

I'll miss being surrounded by a language that means so, so much to me. I'll miss being unable to explain why it means so much to me, though I suppose I can't properly explain that anywhere.

I'll miss teaching everybody how to properly pronounce Franzözische Straße and clarifying why radler is called radler and introducing them to Kraftklub and Cro and explaining the historical significance and growth of Hamburg or Munich or Frankfurt.

I'll miss exclusively using simple yet schön German words like hallo and tschüssi and ja, but let's be honest, I'll be that annoying girl who comes back from studying away and still uses a different language in her everyday life. To be even more honest, I was already that girl.

I'll miss it so much when I go back to New York and will have to once again get excited when I hear German tourists and eagerly look over to whoever I'm walking with and whisper "THEY'RE GERMAN" as I hold onto every little word of their conversation.

I'll miss being mistaken for being German, as a girl on a bike asks "ob Wilhelmstraße links oder rechts ist." As always, I'll still try my best to manufacture these situations in New York, always grabbing the German floor plan at the MoMA and carrying the shopping bag I got in Vienna that has a funny NSFW joke on it.

I'll miss your green spaces. Your empty spaces. Your "this park has no purpose, if this were New York there would be a skyscraper and the sidewalk would be half this size" spaces.

I'll miss your flea markets, Mauerpark, broken cameras and old dishes, the packed rows of karaoke-listeners sipping from glass bottles of Berliner Kindl and eagerly cheering on terrible and amazing singers alike.

I'll miss your leaves in the fall, the way the yellow and red trees peer over the Spree, making me feel like I'm deep in a forest, not in the middle of Kreuzberg.

I'll miss that concrete block I sat on, listening to Fallingwater by Maggie Rogers and sipping on radler (Berliner Kindl---they didn't have Gösser at Lidl), thinking about how I'd have to leave one day. I hear the river trickle by and feel the pounding of the beginning of the song in my chest, in my gut, crying a little.

I'll miss your public transport. The way you can see the whole way down the newer trains so you can watch them slither and slide around turns.

I'll miss transferring from the U6 to the U2 at Stadtmitte. Staying on the U6 longer some days to take the peaceful tram from Friedrichstraße. "Zurückbleiben, bitte." The beeps still echo in my mind.

I'll miss casually whipping out my ticket when the plain-clothed officers think they're gonna get 60 Euro out of me for catching me without one.

I'll miss pulling up google flights and debating if I should go to Copenhagen for 20 Euro this weekend.

I'll miss your theaters, full of history and tradition, cheap and often experimental. I'll even miss uncomfortably clapping for the tenth round of cast bows.

I'll miss how inspired I felt having more creative classes this semester: reading "Kaspar" and "Big and Little" for my theater class, pondering Nietzsche's ideas about language in "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" for my Marx Nietzsche Freud class, going to museums... those are moments that made me feel like I was truly alive and reminded me that I too have creativity begging to be released.

I'll miss your recycling! Not being offered bags! Pfand! Leaving bottles next to trash cans! It's so easy and good for the environment, what are you doing USA??

I'll miss NYU Berlin. The sense of security, the community, the event coffee and sandwiches, the care to provide vegan options, the beautiful buildings filled with less than 100 people (a shock to the system for an NYU student), all of whom I knew and interacted with daily.

Most of all, I'll miss just that---your people. I'll miss our co-existence in that time and space and circumstance for those four months. My eloquent and insightful professors, the deeply caring staff, the friends full of laughter and life and love. An environment full to the brim with passion and talent: exactly what I hoped for when I applied to NYU.

I'll miss our elaborate pregames with themes and flyers (linen exchange! the pregame before the concert at the venue!), our selfies in "THIS IS HOVERWHELMING," our mandatory movie mondays and buchclubs and vegan union and meat lovers club and surprise birthday parties

I'll miss entering Sara's office with a mug of tea and leaving with a "tschüss," my mind buzzing with her reassurance and suggestions, the course of my week altered by her kindness.

I'll miss having tea with Linn, our big decision about what kind of tea I would have, feeling an unbelievable rush of inspiration from hearing her experiences and opinions on everything from veganism to capitalism. I'll miss that last hug at the goodbye party that nearly toppled me over and made me feel so loved:)

I'll miss Ngoc-Le kindly visiting our room because there has been yet another injury/sickness.

I'll miss meeting with Gabriella at cafes near Gendarmenmarkt to discuss my internship paper.

I'll miss Dominik's housekeeping notes.

I'll miss seeing our lovely RA's at linen exchange or spending time with them at events.

I'll miss how one of the guards always recognized me and would rush to buzz me into the AC, even though my ID was already in my hand to scan.

I'll miss...

Bella's hugs and shoulder to cry on, boy Ryan basically sleeping all of Oktoberfest, Evan's hour long mashups, Jenna's carefree dancing in Tresor (oh, and the banana chronicles), Mahir's excitement to speak German with me, girl Ryan's opinions about Maggie Roger's music at Griessmuehle, all of my lovely vegans and our Brammibal's donuts, getting yelled at by Ares with Bernice, hearing Kevin's laugh echo through the AC, talking about music with Francisco, Caterina and Matt belting songs in Spanish, decorating the AC tree with Luke and Bernice and Madison (and watching it fall), Estefany's instagram and her romance with Scootz, the sun lamp chronicles, the sunglasses, the randomness of the Facebook group.

I'm not leaving all of these people behind, and we can keep doing some of these things, but I'll miss that these memories with them distinctly belong in Berlin.

I'll miss the knocks on our door that made our room an constantly evolving group of people.

I'll miss who I was in Berlin because, although I'm still me and I'm absolutely bringing a part of Berlin Maura back, she lives back in 2018 Berlin, just as Freshman year NYC Maura still exists back in 2016.

But you know what? There are a few things I won't miss, and I wouldn't do Berlin justice (or make myself feel better about leaving) without pointing them out.

I will not miss hurriedly shoving my groceries into my bag while the lady scans them at warp speed and tells me the price, making a rash decision whether to finish bagging and then pay therefore leaving her impatiently waiting or whether to pay, then scramble to throw my items into my bag as the next persons items also begin to pile up. I think I'm going to have nightmares about this in the future. I actually have already.

I will not miss not knowing"ob Wilhelmstraße links oder rechts ist" because Berlin's layout makes no sense to me---I'm so excited to go back to New York, where 12th St. is simply 8 blocks up from 4th St.

I will not miss commuting 30-40 minutes to campus by public transit. And not being able to realistically walk to the AC every day. Sometimes I liked the journey and the way it forced me to sit with my thoughts and music, but sometimes I wish there was just a way to make it faster!

I will not miss looking outside to dreary, dark winter skies, wondering when I'll next get a glimpse of the sun.

I will not miss the empty, sad walls of my room. My room was lovely, but it never felt like it was my home like my rooms in New York have.

I will not miss the limited wardrobe I brought with me, especially the fact that I decided that all of my favorite (heeled) shoes would take up too much space. While I'm fascinated by the sense of style I took on in Berlin, I'm so excited to have all of my belongings back in my hands.

I will not miss living next to the guards and getting yelled at for music and parties simply because they were right by our door.

I will not miss having to get buzzed in after midnight, being forced to have face-to-face interactions with the guards at times that were not ideal for this.

---

To answer the question I posed to myself in October, I'm sure that this answer will evolve. But right now, the pictures do take me back. Watching the videos of Matt in that damn wig just made me nearly laugh my wisdom teeth stitches out. I can feel the giddy laughter coming from my mouth, taste my favorite wine. Seeing Sara's name in my email inbox makes my heart ache, I can see the white walls of the bathroom stall I'd take refuge in towering above me, but I can also feel the inhale of a deep breaths and hear a soft voice reminding me to relax my forehead, cheeks, jaw. Looking at the pictures from atop that hill in Istanbul lets me taste the crisp, cool evening air, feel the wet grass and cool rock under me, hear my long conversation with Kevin as we time-lapsed the shit out of that sunset. Seeing the picture of Caterina, Bella, and I drinking wine our first night, I can feel the eager anticipation of my arrival in Berlin, feel the relief as I realized that my roommates were amazing and also realizing that Berlin would be way different than I expected (I was right!)

Maybe I'll make another similar post as time goes on and I realize more small things that I miss. But for now, this post feels like Berlin---kind of incomplete but ready to be resumed at any given moment, a little messy, a little confused, quite scared of the future, but full of love and self-discovery and packed with absolutely unforgettable memories.