Not Afraid of the Fall

by Kyle James

  Before heading to a swanky hotel bar across the street from our studio to work, we decided to partake in Amsterdam’s local offerings. Living in Denver had given us a taste of marijuana, but this joint was something much stronger and different. I figured it must have been laced with something, but by then I couldn’t unsmoke it. So we did the only logical thing in this situation; we embraced the weirdness of its effects.

  Ash was far less impaired than I was, as she had only taken a hit or two. She was ready to leave the apartment and get to work, but I was trying to get the room to stop spinning. I could not get down the stairs without laughing.

  We made it to the street and then began the three-block trek. As we walked, Ash tripped over her own feet and nearly fell. I didn’t know if her shoes were too heavy for her feet, but she had been tripping all over Europe. Speaking of tripping, doesn’t that dinosaur need to be on a leash? I thought.

  As I sat writing about our last few days in Amsterdam, I noticed how different each experience had been. We’d been explorers in France, beer tasters in Belgium, family members in Rotterdam, and partygoers in Amsterdam. That was one of our main qualms with working our nine-to-fives: the monotonous nature of our days. Sure, we could have spent more time doing different things, but after a long, stressful day at work, it was hard to do much of anything besides work out and eat dinner. I am a creature of habit and find comfort in routines. The problem with feeding this creature a routine was that I rarely found myself out of my comfort zone enough to grow. This trip had not only thrown me out of my comfort zone, but it had opened my eyes to the joys of living life on a tight budget. This was a small price to pay for freedom.

  Since we’d left Denver two weeks ago, we’d been waking up every morning not knowing what the day had in store for us. We wandered and explored cities until we felt like we had it all figured out. But by the time this comfort had settled in, our train, bus, car, or plane was waiting to throw us into the next city, the next country, the next culture. We would miss Amsterdam, but we were excited to explore Germany.

  6/22/15

  Amsterdam, Netherlands → Berlin, Germany

  Waking up at 5:30 a.m. was never going to get easier for me. Amsterdam is one of the few cities you can go to sleep and wake up at the same time on consecutive days. This was the second time I’d seen 5:45 a.m. on my phone this weekend. I’d packed my backpack the night before, but Ash went to sleep with early-morning packing ambitions instead. This shortsighted thinking led to her running around like a madwoman, throwing things into her backpack.

  Arjen came to grab the studio key from us and see us off. I was grateful we’d gotten to know Arjen this week. He’d made our trip to Amsterdam special.

  Our trip to Berlin was not by BlaBlaCar but by FlixBus. FlixBus is a massive double-decker Mercedes bus with onboard Wi-Fi, outlets at each seat, refreshments sold on board, and reclining seats. The buses travel all over Europe, with trips as cheap as five dollars a person. The large green bus began moving, and Ash fell asleep instantly. Ash is very similar to a baby when it comes to moving vehicles putting her to sleep.

  After only forty-five minutes, we pulled over at a rest stop and the driver yelled, “Fifteen minutes!” squeezing the words out from the gap between his already lit cigarette and lips. We purchased coffee and waffles from Albert Heijn. Ash had only just finished the last bite of her waffle when she fell back asleep. I decided to start transferring my handwritten journals to a Google doc in case I lost them or spilled beer on them or something.

  Our bus made one last stop in a small town in the middle of nowhere an hour outside of Berlin, but neither of us budged. Ash was fast asleep, and I was deep into my writing and listening to some German classical music.

  Finally, the bus arrived in Berlin. As we gathered our belongings sprawled around our seat from the five-hour ride, a Dutch girl from across the aisle leaned in and asked, “Are you writing a book?”

  I responded, “Uh, yeah, I think so.”

  Before leaving the bus, she smiled and said, “That’s awesome; you have been writing for the last five hours! I write a lot, too—good luck!”

  This was the first time I truly felt like an author. I hurried to get my backpack out from under the bus and then rushed off to find her. I said, “Hey! What’s your e-mail? I’ll send you the book when I finish it!” She excitedly wrote down her e-mail and told me she was looking forward to it. I am too, I thought. I am too.

  The first leg of the journey was over; now we had to get to our neighborhood by metro. At this point, all the metro stations seemed essentially the same: people not speaking, kiosks, ticket machines, signs I couldn’t read, and facial expressions I could.

  As we sat on the metro I began recapping the previous day in my journal. Ash and I both noticed that everyone was watching me write my chicken scratch in furious motions (I am not a graceful writer). I couldn’t tell if they were watching because people don’t write in public anymore, or if it was because people just don’t write very much anymore at all. Typing seems to be the easier and more efficient option in this day and age. I prefer writing because it truly makes me think about what I’m putting on paper. With the ease with which we hit the delete button, we can erase thoughts too quickly. Would I be editing and transcribing on a computer later? Yes. But the therapeutic feeling of writing my daily thoughts was beginning to help me cope with the massive amounts of stress I still carried. Society still had a stronghold on me, and although I was beginning to see the benefits of travel, I still constantly questioned if we had made the right decision. Ash was my therapist. She reminded me that we were doing this for our own growth, the growth of seeing the world, something that very few jobs could give us. I hoped she was right.

  We stepped out of the metro and into a world unlike one we’d ever seen: cars and bikes whizzing by with people wearing stylish rags, black-and-white punk outfits, and trendy-hipster clothing. I felt like I was in a Tim Burton movie.

  We were staying in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin. After a short walk, we found our building nestled between a bike repair shop and a hip café. We buzzed our host Sasha and heard the lock on the massive door open.

  We got lucky because when we’d inquired about staying with him, he told us he was actually going to be out of town in Istanbul for work. We had the entire flat to ourselves, starting tomorrow. We would be in Berlin for five days, our longest stretch in any city yet. We didn’t want to leave without really taking in the customs and culture.

  We unpacked quickly so we could go explore the Berlin bustling outside our window. For dinner, we were meeting our good friends Marius and Julia. They were natives of Germany but had spent the last six months working in Denver. We put the address of the restaurant into Google Maps and started the 1.6-mile walk. The buildings in our neighborhood were emblazoned with impressive graffiti. We crossed corner after corner of graffiti all the way to the bridge that led into what used to be East Berlin.

  As we crossed the massive bridge over the Spree River, we looked down on the railroad tracks, covered in trash. It seemed every person who’d crossed this bridge had thrown an empty beer bottle over the edge. The grime and grunginess of the city perfectly encompassed the culture of the creative individuals who inhabited it. I felt more alive walking through these streets than I had felt in a while.

  6/23/15

  Berlin, Germany

  With our first full day in Berlin, we set out into the rain to find the Berlin Wall. We reached the wall at the end of the bridge and gazed at the famous East Side Gallery. The wall was illustrated with segments from amazing artists from all over the world. I started panning across the second segment and came to a picture of abstract faces with large lips. It was one of my favorite pieces, and the name at the bottom read, MARY MACKEY DENVER, CO USA. (Well, how about that?)

  After walking the entire length of the Berlin Wall, we wanted to check out Spreepark, an old abandoned amusement park that had been turned into a city park. It was a long walk,
but we found a shortcut through trails.

  It hit me that we had not seen another human in a long time. Where the hell is everyone? The weird feeling intensified as we passed a lone tombstone with no writing on it. Seems like an odd place for a tombstone, I thought. I turned from the gravestone just in time to see a massive German shepherd staring back at me. My fight-and-flight adrenaline lines must have run into each other while coursing through my veins, because rather than fighting or flighting, I froze up and tried to keep urine from running down my legs. Suddenly the dog’s owner came jogging around the corner. She smiled at us as the two of them ran off. Ash and I exhaled and laughed nervously, as if we’d just dodged a bullet.

  We exited the shortcut and crossed the street into our original destination of Spreepark. I had not been able to shake this eerie feeling as we entered another humanless path surrounded by thick woods. This particular deserted park was covered in dark-green brush, and, simply put, felt dead. The cold rain dropped off branches and onto the fallen leaves. The sky, meanwhile, was quickly darkening with the oncoming night.

  We continued down the path, looking for a sign for the amusement park. We started seeing the remnants of the old park through a barbed wire fence as the sun began setting, and we passed a sign that read, DO NOT ENTER! GUARDING WITH DOGS! DANGER TO LIFE AND LIMB! Well, that doesn’t seem necessary, does it? The worst part was the singular “limb” as I imagined a German shepherd tearing one of my forearms to shreds.

  The one-hundred-foot-tall Ferris wheel stood alone in the cold sky, rocking back and forth, creaking as each gust swelled. We agreed we had seen enough scary parks for one day and decided to get the hell out of there. We still had a mile and a half to cover to get out of the woods, and our phone batteries were dying quickly. We’d started talking about how easy it would be for someone to murder us out there just as we saw headlights approaching.

  This was a walking path, and we were in the middle of nowhere. Why would there be a vehicle? I immediately assessed our situation. We were alone in a deserted German park, a mile and a half from civilization. Both of our phones were almost dead, and it was getting dark, not to mention extremely cold (the temperature didn’t really affect anything, but it didn’t help). The beat-up car continued approaching us and was only 250 yards away.

  Weapons. Do I have any weapons? I looked around and found nothing but small shrubs and sticks. I sure wish I had a Swiss Army knife. Then I got it: Ash’s Canon camera. This was our largest object and would be heavy enough to do some damage. If I give a surprise blow to the head and follow it with a quick uppercut, I thought, I should be able to rattle the chin enough to knock them out. If nothing else, it would stun them momentarily, and I could tackle whoever was coming at us while Ash ran.

  As I prepped my mind to make solid connections and gave Ash the game plan, the car inched forward, its lights now on dim. Ash slowly handed me the camera, and we took deep breaths. It was the moment of truth: one hundred yards away, and we were clearly in their headlights now. Fifty yards … forty yards. When the car was twenty-five yards away, we could make out the silhouette of a large man. He spotted us and stopped. Showtime.

  Just as we were preparing to execute our plan, the guy seemed as spooked by us as we were of him. He began an awful attempt at a three-point turn, and executed the seldom-used six-point turn instead. After thirty seconds of inching forward and back, he sped off in the other direction.

  We looked at each other and laughed out loud at how shaken up we were. I told Ash I wasn’t really that scared, but my drawn-out plan of action had clearly given me away. We left the park and made it to our Airbnb by memory (somehow). We were angry with ourselves for allowing both of our phones to die while we were alone in a park, and even to let a situation like that become … a situation like that. Tomorrow things would be different.

  6/24/15

  Berlin, Germany

  We could not help but sleep in. It was a cold, rainy morning, and the constant pattering on the window produced too soothing a rhythm for us to wake up.

  Eventually, our hunger took over the window music. I left to grab breakfast. Nothing looked very appetizing at the market, so I ventured farther down the street, past the shops we’d popped into yesterday. One of the hipster punk shops had a necklace with a K emblem on it that Ash had wanted. She didn’t end up getting it because it was pricey, but I wouldn’t have minded her wearing my initial on her neck all the time.

  With no luck finding a place to grab food on this street either, I asked the shop owner to recommend a good breakfast spot. She gave me some vague directions to a place called something “Schmuck.” She couldn’t remember the first word in the name, but told me it had the best brunch in the neighborhood. If I knew the name, I could google it, but “Schmuck” wasn’t registering as a location.

  Ash was far from impressed that instead of food, I returned with a great recommendation to a place I didn’t know the name of. It was getting close to noon, and if my lady hasn’t eaten by noon, she turns into a Hangry Hulkess. I was running out of time before the transformation.

  Today we were going to Tempelhof Airport, and we agreed to find food on the way. We strolled in the direction of the abandoned airport and kept an eye out for places to eat. I had forgotten about the mythical “Schmuck” restaurant when Ash pointed out a place that looked good. We approached the quirky-looking diner to see a cursive sign that read SALON SCHMüCK. Well, I’ll be damned, I thought.

  We took seats at a comfortable table in the café, which had a living room feel, and we ordered two shots of espresso each while we waited for our food. The food arrived, and it was exquisite. The French toast had bacon sprinkled on top, and the berg auf tal, essentially a continental breakfast, was a mountain of cheese, meats, fruits and vegetables, and a basket of rolls, toast, and small baguettes. It looked way too good to be true. The only thing we were missing was butter for the bread. This was a small price to pay for a heavenly meal. Our trek continued.

  The Tempelhof Airport was one of the world’s first commercial airports. It was an instrumental hub in World War II Nazi Germany, but it was closed down in 2008 so it could be turned into a park where cyclists, joggers, kiteboarders, and other active people use the former runways for recreational purposes.

  We reached the airport and walked along the massive old runway. I realized this was my first time going less than two hundred miles per hour on a runway. There was a harsh chill coursing through the Berlin air, and although we had jackets on, we still had to find a bench on the wheel-beaten asphalt to sit behind to escape the biting wind. If the bench didn’t do the trick, I imagined the large beers we’d bought on the way here would. We attempted to play a card game, but the wind was like a pestering two-year-old throwing our cards all over the place. Luckily for the kiteboarders, and unluckily for us, the wind kicked up a notch.

  It was great that we were legally allowed to drink in public in Berlin, but the true game changer was that I could legally urinate in public. I took advantage of this legality and relieved my bladder over the fence to make room for my second beer in public. I could certainly get used to this lifestyle, I thought as a kiteboarder flew off the end of the runway as if he were taking off.

  6/25/15

  Berlin, Germany

  After a long day doing nothing but drinking on an old runway, our goal was to explore the museum district of Berlin. As we stepped off the stoop of our place and onto the street, I felt like I was waking up in a new city. It was the first day since we had arrived in Berlin that we had seen the sun. All of a sudden “AAACHH-OOOO” erupted from my mouth.

  It felt like the scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest is in Vietnam and the sun finally comes out after days of rain, immediately followed by a barrage of bullets. The allergies hit me hard and fast as we walked. I popped an allergy pill I found in the bottom of my toiletry bag, despite the label claiming the meds had expired in 2009.

  On our way to the museums, Ash stopped to do a little more shopp
ing.

  I ventured across the street to the pharmacy as she went through the robotic motions of sifting through clothing racks. I bought some prescription-grade allergy medicine for seven dollars. The pharmacy system in Europe is amazing.

  We made it through the shopping district without spending a dime (I was both impressed and surprised Ash had not purchased anything since we had arrived), and three hours later we had arrived at the Holocaust memorial.

  This Holocaust memorial in Berlin is called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a gut-wrenching name for a gut-wrenching time. In my opinion, it is an architectural masterpiece. The memorial is made up of thousands of concrete stelae (slabs often serving as gravestones) in rows representing the six million Jewish people killed during World War II. I believe that the memorial’s architect, Peter Eisenman, designed it to represent the paradox of chaotic order. Although the concrete stelae were in perfect rows and in grid form, the memorial rested on a hill, and this effect created wide-ranging heights for the blocks of stones. Some were a few feet tall; others towered over our heads. I feel as if Eisenman was trying to symbolize a world of normality and order that had been completely shaken up and destabilized. I quietly walked through a deep alleyway of the memorial and reached a point where the sunlight was blocked by a fifteen-foot-tall stela. Towers of cold concrete surrounded me, leaving me in the dark, bringing on a general sense of loneliness and despair. Well done, Peter Eisenman, well done, I thought.

  We ordered some Helles Hefe Weizen at a market and then went to the Reichstag building, the meeting place of the German parliament. We didn’t want to pay to go in and watch them work—that wasn’t really our thing; instead we stayed outside and drank our beers and people watched as everyone took photos in front of the building. It was an amazing-looking building architecturally, but the people taking pictures were much more amusing. The selfie epidemic has reached an undeniable worldwide fever pitch.