For my second half
of spring break, I went to Berlin. If I'm being completely honest, I wish I'd
stayed in Ireland. Berlin has plenty of attractions and a rich history, but
it's not a particularly pretty city. I also went from celiac heaven to what was
essentially celiac hell. Finding food was so difficult and with Berlin being so
spread out, it took at least 30 minutes
to get anywhere I'd be able to eat at. Thus, much of my four days in Berlin was
spent traveling.
One of the only
saving graces of my trip to Berlin was something, or rather someone, who wasn't
from Berlin or even Europe at all. His name was Jack and I didn't actually see him until the evening after I'd met him.
You see, on my first evening in Berlin, it was already dark by the time I got
back to my hostel. As I walked into my room, fumbling for the light switch in
the pitch black, I realized someone was already there, in the room, probably
sleeping. So without turning on the light, I made my way (slowly) to my bed.
It was then that I
heard in a loud whisper, "Hi, I'm Jack, how ya doing?"
This is,
objectively, a strange way to meet someone and I think given the circumstances,
I would have been somewhat alarmed. Except that with just those six words, I
immediately recognized that Jack was Australian and this instead made me
extremely happy. Simply hearing an Aussie accent takes me back to my
competitive gaming days of playing World of Warcraft. I played on an Aussie
server and many of the close friends I made during this time, some of whom I
still talk to, are Australian.
I smiled into the
dark and introduced myself to Jack. We chatted for a bit before each drifting
off to sleep. When I woke the next morning, Jack was already gone for the day,
so I set off to find food and visit museums. Over the semester, I visited 4 natural
history museums in 3 different countries and although much of Berlin was kind
of disappointing, I have to say that the natural history museum there was by
far the best one I saw.
When I got back to
the hostel on the second evening, Jack was there again and this time, the
lights were on. I found out that Jack was a couple years older than me and
worked in agricultural engineering. He was on holiday, traveling throughout
Europe for the next several weeks. I revealed to him my plans for the next day,
the gaming museum. Jack didn't really play video games much, aside from Legend
of Zelda with his little brother while growing up, but he seemed keen to join
me all the same. So the next day, we set off for the gaming museum, doing
plenty of super touristy things without shame on the way.
Despite Jack not
playing video games much, both our faces lit up as soon as we walked into the
gaming museum. There to greet visitors was a life-sized statue of Link
(Twilight Princess era, for those curious), sword and shield in hand. And next
to this fierce statue of Link, a rather sleepy, rather disinterested cocker
spaniel. After we both took pictures with Link and both thoroughly petted the
disinterested dog, we explored the museum. They had some interesting displays,
but the true gem of the entire experience were these little alcoves they built
in one corner of the museum. Each alcove was designed to look like a teenager's
bedroom from various decades and each room had a corresponding game console
from that decade. I immediately gravitated toward the 90s alcove, where I got
to play Crash Bandicoot for the first time since I was a little girl. Holding
the controller felt right, like an extension of my hands that had been missing
all this time. As I played, my muscle memory kicked in and I found that I still
knew exactly when to jump, when to duck, every secret that every level ever
held.
And so it was that
my favorite moments in Berlin were spent doing things that I was quite familiar
with: talking to Aussies and playing video games.
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