Gone

Lots and lots has happened since my last post. I guess the biggest thing is that technically, the name of this blog is now redundant. The Germany leg of my adventure is complete. I am now writing from within a doona on a couch in Edinburgh, Scotland.

For the next few days I’m staying in the apartment of my friend Murray. He’s out of town for most of the weekend but gave me the keys so I could have a free run of the place in his absence. From the window there’s a view of the castle, but I’m more impressed by what’s inside the apartment. It’s cosy and beautiful, full of paintings, posters, cactus and palm plants, Turkish rugs, stainless-steel pots and pans, an austere spirits collection and an enormous bookshelf stacked with titles. I feel spoilt being in such lovely surrounds.

Perhaps I’m feeling nostalgic for “things”. To get to Scotland I had to comply with Ryanair’s 15kg limit for checked-in luggage, and as I bought almost 30kg of miscellaneous from Australia it’s been a harsh few days of culling. I sold my books to the English Language bookshop. I stood on Hermannplatz with a handmade sign saying “Gitarre – 20 Euro” and offloaded it to a passer-by within minutes. I schlepped my winter clothes to a charity bin, along with the heels that I never once wore in five months and two of the three scarfs I ambitiously packed. A year of almost entirely summer makes for light travel.

The last week of Berlin has been very administrative. I happily passed all of my exams and the process of getting my subjects credited is now in the hands of the Student Administration/the Gods. But alongside my administrative to-do list was my Berlin to-do list, and sadly only one list got itself completed. Much to my dismay, I never made it to the top of the Fernsehturm or visited the Bundestag or made it into Berghaim. As a tourist, I am a failure. I don’t know where all my time went.

But last week was not all work – I still managed to make it to another German music festival. Melt is a blockbuster festival like Hurricane except it’s mostly electronic and held in a former iron mine. It’s got massive drilling machines that provide a very eerie backdrop and the mine itself is now a lake surrounding the camping grounds. Using Mitfargelegenheit, I hooked up a lift with a car full of German women and met up with my posse there.

Germany, and in particular Berlin, is famous for its love of techno music. You either learn to love it, people say, or you stay at home. With a willingness to put my prejudices behind me, I’ve been trying for the entire semester to get my head around it with the aim of perhaps enjoying it. But I’ve only managed to learn to tolerate it. I can’t understand how people can dance to a single sound or beat for five hours (and they swear it’s not drugs). But it’s indisputable that it sounds better after several vodka and oranges, and this, plus the company of my friends, is how I had a great time at Melt.

Perhaps my favourite moment of Melt was the morning after, when we awoke at midday after being steamed alive in the tent and wandered down to the lake for a swim. We did manage to somehow take a route that led us directly through a communal outdoor poo toilet, which was a bit of a dampener. But all was forgotten when we got to the banks of the lake and joined the others chilling out there, with some Eastern-European types playing some techno from their speakers and some naked guys cavorting around and a soft forgiving breeze.

Last week was also packed with goodbyes. Because I’m coming back to Europe in a few months and will see a lot of my friends again it wasn’t that teary, but just that kind of strange heart feeling when you know a time in your life is ending. There were so many goodbye beers and goodbye meals. This is probably a reflection of my hedonistic lifestyle, but it appears that food and beers have been my main areas of expenditure during Berlin. My wardrobe is stagnant, but my belly is full.

The last goodbye was last night at this wonderful place called Bar 25 on the Spree. It’s a famous outdoor club with a pit fire and a discoball and swings strung up from the tree. All my favourite people were there and it was perfect. I managed 2 hours sleep and then dragged my life down the steps and out of Berlin. The entire day has been a succession of happy and sad feelings. My eyes are bloodshot, my nerves are shot and my grammar is almost gone. Bed (even if it’s not my own) has never been more appealing.

One of my main aims of coming to Berlin (and this may sound a bit melodramatic) was to learn how to just live - to stop being so busy and eager to fill in all the spaces of my life with trivia. And I have led a simple life - my only commitment was university but apart from that, I had absolute freedom to do something or not do it.

And I have done some really good things. I’ve read books that I never had the patience for, I’ve started drawing and writing and playing guitar again, as well as running and yoga. I’ve gone from basically zero knowledge of German in March to reading German newspapers and conversing entirely in German at dinner parties. I’ve met many many great people who have made my time in Berlin (and hopefully onwards) happy. And the parties – oh, the parties!

But I’ve missed having direction in my life, something long term and meaningful. So much choice sometimes made me feel a little trapped. There is this strange lost feeling that quite a few people I’ve spoken to have experienced during their exchange. It’s not routine that we’re missing – it’s a solid surface to build the framework of a life on.

Three and a half more months on the road before I return back to Australia. What do you reckon, reading audience, should I go on with this blogging thing?