Berlin, You Weird Beautiful Beast: A Love Letter to the City
May 22, 2025 Atelier ManganelThere’s a certain kind of romance that smells like Döner at 3am and sounds like someone yelling on the U8. That’s Berlin love. Messy, loud, and oddly poetic—if you squint past the graffiti and broken glass.
You don’t fall for Berlin like you fall for Paris or Barcelona. Berlin doesn’t woo. It doesn’t dress up for you. It shows up in sweatpants, late, holding a Club-Mate. But once you’re in, you’re in.
It starts somewhere small. For me, it was a Späti at the corner of a street I still can’t pronounce. I stood there, trying to decide between two beers I’d never heard of, while someone next to me argued about techno with the shop owner. A girl in a leopard coat walked by holding a small dog and an even smaller espresso. It was weird. And it felt like home.
The thing about Berlin is, it never tries to impress you. There’s no polished pitch. Just brutalist honesty. One minute you’re walking past a squat with a spray-painted manifesto, the next you’re in a sunlit courtyard that smells like jasmine. Chaos, with moments of strange calm.
You will get ghosted by the sun here. You will lose at least one winter to grey skies and self-reflection. You will absolutely get rejected from a club by a man in eyeliner who sees through your soul. And yet… you’ll stay. Because just when you think you’ve had enough, Berlin gives you something absurd and perfect: a silent disco under a bridge. A grandma dancing at 2pm in Mauerpark. A stranger offering you watermelon on the S-Bahn.
It’s not pretty. But it’s real. And in a world full of cities trying to look their best, Berlin is just out here existing—bad attitude, great taste, and a heart full of weird.
Some cities break you in quietly. Berlin breaks you in like a pair of Docs: blistering, clunky, but once it fits, it’s yours forever.
