This is the reason I went to Berlin.  Friends.  It's a strange thing, friendships.  I believe God has people for you in every season of your life.  Some seasons are very brief.  Some seasons turn into lifetimes.  Some seasons bring a whole lot of junk.  Some seasons are filled with normal.  And some seasons are just lovely.  And if you are very, very blessed ... there are some seasons filled with everything.

These friends of mine have been knitted into my life for the "just about everything seasons" in my life overseas.  I do make a distinction between overseas friends and my non-overseas friends.  If you've never crossed an ocean and lived in a place where you don't know how to ask for the toilet then you have never forged friendships like those that are created while living overseas.  They are not better than non-overseas friendships ... they are just different.

Not living close to blood relatives, Sonic, or Kohl's, these girls have seen me through times when I thought I would die laughing, die crying, or die from boredom.  I've seen them through times when they wanted to run away, stow away and stay away.  We've shared Thanksgiving meals around tables of internationals.  We've packed each other up for another move.  We've discussed marriage, weight and children.  We've gossiped and confessed.  We've prayed and sat dumbfounded until an answer came.  We've scratched our heads at ourselves and each other.  We've been there ... and being there counts ... especially when you live overseas.


This is the reason for the visit ... coffee.  Seriously, not coffee for the sake of coffee but coffee for the sake of what it represents.  I love that my living in Europe has forever changed my concept of "having coffee".  It's not about the roasting of the beans that then become ground into velvet powder that then dissolves into molten liquid to be sipped at just the right temperature that equals pure heaven (OK, maybe a little) but it's the time that is created between hot cups held with warm hands.

Our first meeting was marked by ... coffee.  The sitting down together around our beverage and talking ... really talking ... and listening ... really listening.  It's the symbolism of being known and truly knowing another.

We structured our day around when the next time was we could sit in a cafe and drink ... coffee.  In those moments we discussed our healing from hurts, our hurts that needed healing, and our fears that some hurts would never be healed.  We contemplated real life in front of people that wouldn't judge how many times we cried or didn't cry or couldn't cry.  We debriefed our positions in our current lives and created scenarios of what our individual futures might, could, or should look like.  These were raw and holy conversations that over coffee felt sacred.

Our paths crossed here in Vienna.  Now, one lives in Texas while two still reside in Vienna.  A trip to Berlin by my Texas comrade created the perfect scenario for us to reunite.  Just us girls.  Away from families.  Away from home.  Alone.  Alone with time to talk.  Alone with time to talk over coffee.

I came away from my weekend in Berlin with something ... that I'm not sure I know how to put into words.  It was more than just catching up.  It was more than seeing a new European city.  It was more than buying new socks.  It was about the reconnecting with my friends that when together pulls something out in me that is good and right and whole.

These are the things friendships are made of and I am the better for my friendships.  I am also very grateful for God's timing in allowing me to forge these bonds in a season of my life that has been made sweeter for having these friends in it.

These are the good things.
Christina

I went to Berlin.

I had no notion of what to expect of the new capital of unified Germany.  Upon first glance, it seemed just like "home" (Vienna):  same language, same people, same stores, same coffee.  However, upon further inspection, there was way more under the surface that left me intrigued.

I am not a "Hipster" (by definition, one who follows the latest trends while appearing to not really care about said trends and possibly self-denying the label but - who for all practical purposes - create a trend by falling into the "Hipster" category.  Whew!).   I do, however, enjoy the old, vintage, good ol' days, days of old, days of yore that seem to somehow capture the imaginations of the "Hipster" movement.

This would capsulate my experience of Berlin.  Everywhere in this modern city was evidence of the old.  The old being a communist handcuff on a portion of the city, a wall that divided much more than land mass and a sprinkling of Jewish imprints on a city that eradicated over 50,000 of them during WW2.

In the photo below, this cathedral stands as a living testament of the effects of war.  The steeple and back side of the sanctuary were destroyed by a bomb.  Reconstruction was not an option for re builders of modern Berlin.  Instead, they chose to build a new sanctuary of cubist style right next to the original Gothic structure.  The two live side by side.  The old.  The new.  Incidentally, this is the site of the 2016 Christmas Market tragedy where a large truck ransacked visitors attending a Christmas Market killing 12 people in a terrorist attack.



There is a German word, Stimung, that means "mood".  I love the way it sounds in German and have decided that from here until whenever, I will use the word Stimung to capture certain moods.  Berlin, near Check Point Charlie, certainly had it's own Stimung.  I was expecting to find a location similar to what Tom Hanks experienced in A Bridge of Spies but sadly, it's a very understated little white shack nestled in between restaurants and museum gift shops.


Directly across the former check-point allowing entrance between East and West Berlin lays evidence of the infamous Wall.


In fact, all around the city, these brightly colored pipes denote the location of the original Wall separating Berlin into two very different cities.