I managed to get through nearly the entire cold, wet summer without getting a cold, and even held out through our short but sweet honeymoon in Vienna last week. But at last, as often happens when you are trying so hard not to get sick, your body finally succumbs, and you find yourself waking up sniffly, groany, and grumbly (not the new names of the seven dwarves) in a way that not even a good cup of coffee with foamed milk, a glass of blood orange juice, and soft-boiled eggs can cure. As is very often the case when I am sick, while my body is busy keeping me in, my mind is soaring to new heights of restless creativity. Perhaps because I am so obsessed with being productive, it is on those days when I have the least energy that I always regret the things I could be doing. I should just spend the entire day in bed watching movies (the last time I was sick I re-watched Inglourious Basterds and found it to be even better than it was the first time I saw it, nearly three years ago and right after my first Berlin visit).

As it is, I did in fact watch a movie—two really, but they are so closely connected they should be counted as one—in preparation for my second trip to Vienna: the subtle, beautiful, and romantic twin slices of life called Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. These films can be quite polarizing I suppose, with half the crowd full of appreciation for their honest look at young love and what happens to it as we grow older, and for their gorgeous portrayals of two European capitals in which it seems inevitable that one will fall in love. I saw these two films by chance and strangely: the second one first, when it came out in theaters during my first year of college, and the first one several months later, encouraged by the friend who had originally dragged me to the theater, promising I would still enjoy and understand it, really just wanting a companion in the dark, nearly-empty theater. I don’t think I quite got the point of “Sunset,” and “Sunrise” was hard to watch because I knew just what was going to happen to the two star-crossed lovers. Yet seven years and many, many experiences later, I find myself watching them with renewed interest, appreciating the directness and simplicity of their approach.

On my bike yesterday, pedaling along Alt-Moabit on my way back from the gym, I had a tremendously appealing thought: it is the 1st of September. The pressure is off. It may not be the first day of fall yet, but by all counts summer is unofficially over. What a freeing feeling; I can finally breathe. After this absolutely dreadful excuse for a summer, during which we had flash thunderstorms weekly and it rained—hard—pretty much six days out of every seven, we can finally go back to it being just simply fall. No more barbecues half-heartedly planned because of the high likelihood that they would get rained out, no more weddings (including my own!) seemingly ruined due to a 48-hour rain run. No more looking up at grey, dull skies and wondering what we all did wrong in our lives, or if Berlin was once again being punished for its grim history with an equally grim, ongoing summer forecast.

Probably because I just saw Midnight in Paris for the second time, I’ve been thinking a lot about nostalgia and how it affects people. The movie has been discussed half to death, but if you are part of the dwindling minority that hasn’t seen it yet (and in that case, get thee to a Kino as soon as possible), just know that it deals chiefly in the art of nostalgia. The main character’s nostalgia for a bygone area, or perhaps just a time in his own past when he had more choices to make, more chances open to him; our nostalgia for a Paris that we may have caught a glimpse of on vacations past, back when we also charmingly and naively thought we could move there in the blink of an eye; Woody Allen’s nostalgia for a career in which his every movie was hotly anticipated, instead of merely wearily tolerated. I saw the film for the first time in New York with J, and for the second time in Berlin with Nicole, who declared as we walked out of the theater that although she loved the film, it made her feel terrifically sad. What is it about that sighing, wistful longing for the past that is so strong, it actually ends up fueling our future? Is it that the older we get and the more we have to look back on rather than look forward to, the more we feel the need to talk about what we no longer have?

When the Ferris wheel first went up on a barren stretch of Heidestrasse just north of where I live, I paid little attention. After all, in the two summers I had lived in the unnamed and ill-defined area surrounding Hauptbahnhof, I had seen many a structure spring up among the weeds, only to disappear again some short weeks later. But somehow, this one called to me in a way the others—dingy traveling circus with child-performers like something out a Dickens novel, badly-orchestrated production of the musical Cats!—had not. After all, it had a Ferris wheel! Something about it reminded me of London or Paris, both of which I remember at their best when adorned with the graceful spokes and precariously swinging vestibules of their very own giant wheels. It also reminded me a bit of weekend afternoons spent at Coney Island in my childhood, the crowning moment of which would be a visit to the Astroland amusement park. I hoped it was here to stay.

At about the same time, I started noticing the somewhat ominous posters around town: the face of a young girl with glowing yellow eyes, painted over like a football hooligan and split down the middle with the flags of two countries, Germany and the USA. The image was indeed more reminiscent of the Exorcist’s Linda Blair than a sign of friendship between two countries. Nevertheless, I quickly identified this as the advertisement for what I had been gazing at through my bathroom window. Just as quickly, I went to the website and did a cursory check: one page displayed the musical program for a two-and-a-half week festival, while another titled “Discover America” listed each and every one of the fifty states along with their notable characteristics. The description of the festival itself promised hamburgers, hotdogs, corn-on-the-cob, and even ribs. A bald eagle, wings outstretched, soared proudly over the proceedings. I was hooked.

I never used to think much of Easter. I don’t mean I thought badly of it; I just mean I never thought of it. Easter in the city comes and goes when you’re a skeptical kid: you notice that everyone around you has gone bunny-hopping mad, and that suddenly kids are bringing even more chocolate into school, and maybe you decorate some eggs with your family on Sunday, but the build-up isn’t there, and afterward, nothing seems all that different.

In Germany, Easter is still a big deal. The Friday and Monday before and after, designated “Karfreitag” and “Ostermontag” respectively, are national holidays, and Eastertime is family time in a big way. On the way up to the country this weekend, my friend Gry and I had to take three different trains just to get up to Parstein—a trip of nearly two hours that normally takes 45 minutes. The explanation? Apparently, every Berliner had woken up on Saturday, realized the weather was nice, and headed up to the Baltic sea with haste. And really, after another long winter, could you blame them?

Here you notice the flowers, you notice the trees, you notice that it’s still light out past 7pm, and that you can finally go outside without a scarf if you want to. The first jump in the lake, the first meal outside, and the weekend really feels like a turning point. This weekend was the unofficial beginning of spring, and we did quite a lot to celebrate it properly. In no particular order we…