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by Pablo Roman-Alcala

Berlin is what is referred to as a "destination” city. I come from another famous destination city, San Francisco. What defines a destination city is its appeal to non-natives from far and wide. Berlin has a long history of being a destination. From the champagne and cabaret, den of iniquity 1920s, to the youth influx to West Berlin due to it being the only place you weren’t required to do military service. Currently, in the Easyjetset times, Berlin has arguably become one of the biggest destination cities in the world. It has experienced a boom in the number of new residents, temporary or otherwise.

I came to Berlin about eight years ago. I am a foreigner, an ex-patriate. I have been at times accepted here and at times I have felt like an alien. Being an immigrant is hard anywhere, and German cultural history is notoriously insular. I have watched wave after wave of young, vibrant, creative people move to this city. I have helped some with finding homes, jobs, or with the Byzantine labyrinth of bureaucratic paperwork that it takes to get a visa. (Here is some free advice: get married to an EU citizen. It helps to actually be in love with them too.) I have seen a lot of these people also resist integration, stay with their own kind, not learn the language or customs. Cultural ghettos form very quickly within the subcultures. It is much easier to hang out with the people you knew back home than to make new friends.

For a time, I hung out with more Germans than English speakers. I was running a monthly party with my really good friend Samir. I spoke some German before we started doing this party together, but I think I have him and our other friends involved in that venture to thank for forcing me to work in German, speak in German, live more of my life in German. I even started speaking to my ex-wife in German sometimes, despite the fact she always laughed at me because she thought it was cute. I felt more a part of Berlin then, than I had before.

I am going back to San Francisco in just a few days for two months. It is my first time being gone that long from Berlin since I moved here. Am I going home? Or am I leaving home? The last year in Berlin has struck me as different. Berlin. Destination City. Home of the Club; there's a new one every week! Home to the Techno Tourist. I hear more English being spoken walking the streets of my neighborhood than German. Hell, I hear more Swedish, French, Spanish, and Italian than I do German. And since I’ve lived on this block all three German bars have closed and been replaced with ones that could be considered more "hip.” How do you communicate to people that gentrification is not an unstoppable juggernaut — especially when a lot of your friends might be the ones doing the gentrifying? (Also, gentrification brings better food, and Berlin has long needed that, so it can be hard to convince yourself to talk about it with a delicious ____ in your mouth).

I don’t know where home is anymore. I guess that is part of why I am going back to my hometown for so long, to figure out where home is and why, to figure out what I want to be doing there. I love Berlin, as I am sure anyone reading this magazine probably does. I love the Berlin of now, of five years ago, of ten years ago, and of way longer in the past when I had no opportunity to see it. Maybe it will continue being my home for another 8+ years. Who knows?

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Taken from SLIM Mag October Isuue