Berlin is so cool! I was told by a friend that you can feel the sense of freedom here, and that really rang true. I coincidentally was here during Germany’s “Freedom Day” - where East and West Germany united into one democratic state back in 1991 - so that also helped a bit. There is so much recent history that’s proudly on display and the entire city just feels so serious and modern. It was amazing!

Definitely one of my favorite stops thus far! I was able to make two new friends. One was my friend Kim - a Korean-American man who worked in Germany and eventually immigrated to Finland after meeting his wife. We met at a German food hall after coincidentally sitting next to each other. When you eat cafeteria style, you make friends! After a night of drinking local beers and talking endlessly about life, he asked if I played Pokemon GO and had any Tauros to trade him - a special Pokemon you can only catch in the USA. I did, we did the trade, celebrated, and said our goodbyes. Absolutely legendary!

The second friend was Long. An expat from Hong Kong who went to UC Berkeley to study math (not too far off from computer science at UC Santa Barbara). He was the most traveled person my age I had met up to now so being able to learn what life was like as an expat, while also teaching me new travel tips was incredibly interesting and invaluable. He also led us to a popup techno chess club hosted by a famous Twitch streamer. Being able to check “go to a techno club in Berlin” off my bucket list in the most nerdy way possible felt extremely fitting for the both of us. Wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Danke schön Berlin! I cannot wait to visit this wonderful country once more.