Newfound Utopia

A couple hours before the clock strikes twelve, I am in a small beer shop, tasting to a select number of drinks and listening to how this Red Oak Ale in my hand came to be, explained by the maker himself. Slightly buzzed from the massive sample sizes given to me, I am still dumbfounded by the sophistication of beer-making and driven to dive in deeper into beer culture. I find my way to a vegetarian Pho place to sit down and eat with friends that I have met just the night before. Together, we arrive at the official Couch Surfing New Year's Eve event, with only 40 minutes of 2015 left.

Conversations, smiles, handshakes, and more beers - until the entire bar runs outside to experience the rapid amateur firework display from hundreds of people on the streets of Berlin. I get lost in the crowd and no longer know anyone around me, and yet I am still brimming with excitement and happiness. In this small instance, all the people on these streets with me are looking up towards the foggy, firework-lit sky. It's as if we were all part of the bigger picture - all part of the beautiful scene that we were experiencing.

6:00am comes around, and the subways are filled with blood-shot, slightly tipsy commuters, exhausted but also reassured of having a really great start to 2016. There are no barriers between strangers, and conversations are created over and over again, with every stop.

There is a fluidity of acceptance and a kind of wholeness that I have not found anywhere else on my short time on this planet so far. Berlin is definitely a place of significance; it isn't just "cool", but it seems to encapsulate a kind of peacefulness that I have been yearning to find. All places will have their tensions, but if I think about New York, city of the most diverse but hostile people, Berlin is definitely the opposite side of the coin.

I've had the most beautiful experience in Berlin, and will be coming back soon, especially with all the connections I have made with it's people. To be quite honest, it was extremely hard to leave. It was my utopia (for the moment) and I wanted to be there for so much longer, even one more night would have made me so happy.

But then I had a schedule. I had plans to hit Prague the next day, and after expressing to my new friend Alexey my desire to stay in Berlin, he urged me to simply do what I wanted.

"Do you think you will regret not staying in Berlin?" he asked.

"Yes", I immediately answered.

"Then stay."

Such a simple thing to do, yet all I could think of was the plan and schedule I have been working on for so long, the money I spent so much effort saving, and the little time I had. So many factors that were clearly held as a priority, and not fulfilling my true desires. I try to think about being spontaneous and shedding off the weight of worries, regrets, fears, and arbitrary thoughts. But despite my efforts, it feels as if this cut-and-dry, logical, linear approach to life is etched into me.

Why is it so hard to do what you desire?

Maybe it isn't, and that I just think too much. Or maybe it actually is, and I am not a lunatic.

#travel #backpacking #europe