I wish I could remember who this artist was . . .

It reminds of me Berlin in the winter. When I lived there, I had not had a real winter since Portland. And before that I can’t think of the last winter I had lived through, having come from California and Austin before. Probably Baltimore, but that was a long time ago now.

It doesn’t count to only experience winter for a few days while you’re traveling. There is all the difference in the world between being a winter tourist and waking up every morning in the dark cold. It does something to you but it is not altogether unpleasant. What I like about it are the lights in the city and going into warm places knowing it is cold outside. I’ll have it again soon enough, I think.

I took these pictures on a very cold winter night in Berlin just three hours before my flight to Amsterdam. I didn’t want to leave and I felt rotten as hell about it so I walked all the way from Kreuzberg to Treptower Park, full of Soviet statues . . . and then to a strange little island nearby with an amusement park on it called Insel der Jugend (Island of Youth), and back again, not seeing a single other person along the way.