Berlin, May 2003

Berlin was one of my happiest moments in life.

I haven’t seen my hubby for almost 5 months straight, communicating by e-mails, YM, and phone only. I went to see him in May 2003. After landing in Kastrup, Copenhagen, he brought me to Malmoe. Malmoe is only about half-an-hour train trip from the airport while it’s already a different country. Malmoe is in Sweden, while Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark.

I spent my arriving day walking around Malmoe, fighting not to sleep so that I would not be overcome by jetlag. The next day, I was bound to Berlin.

We started very early in the morning as our appointment was 6 am in Copenhagen central station, a little farther than Kastrup. In that country, you can’t miss even by one minute. Then the journey began: by couch, by ferry, by couch again. I’ll tell you something funny about ferry ride and the laws of water – in separate entry that would be.

After seven hours of travel, there we were: Berlin.

Rather disappointing, at first. Coming from the all clean Sweden, a not-so-clean Copenhagen, Berlin definitely looked trodden. We came by the East side, perhaps the feeling was rather gloomy there. The walls were barren in our hotel room, down in Alexander Platz – once the hip center of East Berlin.

We then started to walk. Among the museums (Berlin are swarmed in museums), abandoned Soviet-era buildings (you can’t help but saw the ugliness), the mighty block of the former USSR Embassy (so big and grand) near the Brandenburg Torg.

The mighty Brandenburg. Behind it the wall used to stand. There, just a few steps from where the wall was used to be, were erected some memorials of people who died trying to escape. The last one was just few days before the wall were torn down. Tragic.

Berlin was one of the happiest moments I had in my life, didn’t I say so? There we were, me and my hubby, so very far apart from the usual life we had. No kids, no parents. The two of us, just the two of us, among all these strangers.

We walked and walked and walked in Berlin. We hugged, we kissed, we held on to each other. I was so free there. I grinned and smiled a lot there. It was cold for me, and once we walked the whole day and evening without resolving to use any other mean of transportation. But I enjoyed every minute of it.

Enclosed in those barren walls, tucked under the white sheet, the rain outside with cold wind that bit into my cheeks, I felt so free and save. Nothing could happen to us, nothing could come between me and my hubby.

(Alas, life is not that simple. After Berlin, my story would turn out different. Berlin was, at that time, the moment of my most and utter happiness.)