THIS IS BERLIN. DAS IST BERLIN.

"Good morning Berlin,
You can be so ugly, so dirty and grey,
You can be so beautifully appalling." 

- "Schwarz zu Blau" (Peter Fox) 

An ugly city. A gritty, grimy, disfigured, maimed, triumphant, and bewitching city. It will catch you, grip you, strangle you - sacrifice yourself to it, let go. Eyes on the walls that scrutinised the Stasi, they scrutinise you now. Now-blind eyes that peered into the lives of communist automatons - they peer into yours now. Eyes sprayed in rainbow paint, layer upon layer of colour and texture, of hideousness upon beauty and beauty upon hideousness; eyes of owls, of druggies, of goggled Martians upon walls of defunct factories of the departed East - they watch. 

A glistening river of blue is traversed by a gleaming yellow train - the blue and the yellow, they grate under the stare of an icy sun. Yet it is winter and a frigid wind howls through the alley. Scraps of subsistence show themselves in a busy rustling, the wings of feculent pigeons; green alcohol-stained shards tinkle menacingly against cobblestone as the roar of diesel from a passing truck momentarily drowns out all other noise. 

Along the street, a primitive Mercedes has received a new paint job - it now gleams the colours of the rainbow, star rusting, as it rests upon the kerb; a scruffy stray snoozes lazily beneath its broken fender to drown out the unrelenting tumult of freedom that reverberates through the winter air. "Fuck alley", in all-too-legible scrawl on the fifth storey of an unfinished block, adds the finishing touches to the scene. All is illuminated by a glaring blue sky. 

I stand beneath psychedelic construction hoarding, considering some makeshift posters - "You - Me - One Being; Allah, Maria, God, Buddha", it reads. James Blunt's new album is being advertised right beneath - a creative passerby has given him a new hairdo - paint dyes his hair a neon orange. An elderly man with studs through his chin materialises behind me, says, "you Thai?" I say I'm from Singapore. He tells me about his stopover in Singapore in animated German, complete with beaming eyes and gesticulations (never mind the brown booze bottle in his hand). He then wishes me a "schöner Tag" and leaves on his merry way. 

I get shouted at by a drunkard down the street - "good day to be alive, huh?" Black, white; old, young; tall, short; gay, straight; pierced, unadorned; tattooed, undecorated. Another German with a tremendous nose ring asks me something about what we stop to observe - a queer lady reclining in a wooden chair in the gaping hole of a construction site. "Ein Tourist" he explains he is, thinking I was a local (who perhaps somehow turned Asian one fine day). 

People stare, glance, look - I walk. It's all amicable curiosity, really. Unless they're drunk. (Or high). The needle stands far off, the centrepiece of the spectacle. Der Fernsehturm, it's called. Crowning glory of expired socialism, now the icon of this swarming metropolis. Before me stands a row of bricks across the street. An almost indiscernible reminder that the Wall once stood. Right here. To the left, an abandoned Trabi stands proudly on display, rusting. Behind it, boys stumble out of a club, drunk, smoking (weed?). Cigarettes don't smell ordinary. It is noon. Layers of history criss-cross beneath my feet; life surges past me in an unhurried rush. 

I am appallingly in love with this city. I am alive. This city. A one-legged veteran of unending wars, it hobbles nobly, medals gleaming; no spoils, no takings, just living, breathing, unvanquished. 

This is Berlin. Das ist Berlin. 

Cuvrystraße, Kreuzberg, Berlin.

(365 ± 30) days ago

It was (365 ± 30) days ago that I had a nightly routine (a ritual, almost), which now seems to unfortunately have been lost to me. I would clutch close to me either a glass of creamy Irish Bailey's or red wine (or a hot mug of chamomile tea other nights when I was feeling decidedly less "European"), don my warm and fluffy house slippers to keep my toes snug, wrap my pyjamas tight and close to me, and venture to the large, blue oak door with the brass door handle that stood at the end of the entrance hall; grasping the knob with my free hand, I would, with a great effort, pry open the magical portal. (I'm sounding a tad akin to a modern and slightly less long-winded Proust now - just goes to show what Swann's Way is doing to me…) 

I would thereby stand at the convergence of that fierce and icy cold without and that toasty, homely warmth within, exposed savagely to a strange mélange of sensations of tingling and shuddering, and that sense of pleasurable warmth that courses through one's body and veins, brought about by the exquisiteness of a touch of alcohol - this can only be described as purest Gemütlichkeit. An expanse of white snow would unveil itself before me as in a fairy tale, a noble bed of immaculate white receiving the gentle caresses of newly-fallen flakes, a blanket of purity to be ruthlessly desecrated the next morning by vicious and happy children - but that would at least spell an end to the asphyxiated misery of whatever blades of withering grass remained unconsciously existing beneath. 

It's been a year, plus-minus, since I last had the chance of being embraced by nature almost in the comfort of my own home. Perhaps I don't do this much anymore since it's just too warm this winter (5˚ at night - that's indeed warm - eat your hearts out, people stuck back in truly hot and humid Singapore) and not a freak -15˚ as it was last year. Or maybe it's just that I've gotten lazy and my bed just seems a little more welcoming than the cold beyond. Or maybe it's just that conspicuous dearth of snow this time around, the lack of that something that makes this gloomy time of year truly etwas Besonderes.