Berlin is the place where I currently live and it has been like that almost for the last ten year. It's the city I have chosen for my european come back after one year spent between Australia and south east Asia. Obviously why did I move to Berlin is one of the question I get asked the most and although I do not have a clear answer to it, I knew that once I moved here it would have been for a while.
The city as a lot of pro and cons. It's a place that makes you feel comfortable, the cost of living is pretty low compared to the one of other european capitals and there is a plenty of interesting people with impressive life stories and different backgrounds all over the place. Berlin is a sort of love affair that can not turn into something more, at least for me. It's a sort of "non-lieu" that grows its own identity from the fact of not having a clear identity itself.
Cultural-wise is absolutely wide and various. Almost every artistic movement can find its own dimension and no matter what you're into, you'll find someone into the same things sooner or later around the city. The darkness that cover the city especially during the winter period and the lack of light makes of Berlin a place where it is hard to adapt completely, where people pretty often feel lonely and have to find a way to deal with it.
Berlin definitely helped me to grow as a human being. It gave me all the space I needed and it left me quiet, working on what my main interests are. In this city there is the highest number of inspiring life stories I came across so far and crazy nights out I ended up doing something completely unexpected from what I was doing only half an hour before.
Despite of its massive techno scene, If I have to think about my personal Berlin soundtrack I think a huge part of it would be related to ambient music. In particular I like to remember Kraftwerk Autobahn and the nice memories I had relocating from one flat to the next and having to drive up and down from Italy in order to bring up some of my staff. The Bowie trilogy ("Low", "Heroes" and "Lodgers") written between 1977 and 1979 also seems to transpire through the walls of the city, backtracking the movies of Wim Wenders, "Wings of Desire" in particular. Last but not least a movie about the music scene of the late '70 called "Berlin B-Movie" and looking back deeper a little bit in the past, the memories of the expat Christopher Isherwood in his "Goodbye to Berlin" that also inspired the eclectic musical "Cabaret", a great way to have a taste of how was life in the Weimar Republik, just before the awful nazis came to power.
