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Wandering Berlin: A Conversation with the City’s Streets
Living in Berlin means paying too much for coffee just to sit in a centuries-old square and pretend you’re writing a novel.
Everyday at six pm, a man on a bicycle rides along my street. His bicycle is fitted with signage and bells and whistles. He makes a noise as he enters the street.
The noise he makes reminds me of an old ice cream van with a churning bell. The bell would signal for children to rush out into the street, money grasped in their small fists, to be first in line at the Rossi’s ice cream van to order ice cream with a chocolate flake pushed into the Italian ice.
I always wonder what the man on the bike with bells and wheezer-whistle is offering. He rides down this Berlin street everyday. He makes a fanfare of his entrance. I look out of my window to find him, but seldom see him. He has whizzed past already. His ‘toot-toot’ and whizbang sounds becoming muffled by the traffic. I imagine that he’s heralding the-end-of-the-world, or something.
Every city has its prophets. And every city has a history. I love to walk within the old walls of Berlin. To know that so much has happened here in Berlin, that so many lives have been lived with happy moments and with sadness, tragedies…
