Last Sunday, I met a few friends for brunch in Friedrichshain, an area of Berlin I don't usually go to - specifically the area bordered by the S-Bahn and Ringbahn lines and thoroughfares Warschauer Straße and Frankfurter Allee. From where I live, it takes longer and more changes to get to Friedrichshain than almost anywhere else in the city, and I always get lost trying to find addresses. Usually I'm a navigational doyenne, but Friedrichshain's a rabbit warren to me.
There is another reason I don't usually go there. Someone I used to know. We'll leave it at that for the moment. Someone I used to know, and don't particularly want to see again. I know they live and spend a lot of time in this area of Friedrichshain. It's not just that I don't want to go back there because I don't want to see them again, but also that I don't enjoy going back to places which remind me of negative experiences.
After brunch, I walked home from Friedrichshain through Kreuzberg and passed another place I used to visit all the time - an apartment, where I used to spend many a Tuesday evening devouring movies and caramel popcorn with a diverse group of friends. My memories of this place aren't negative - they're positive... but being there makes me a little sad. Several key people within that group have left Berlin, either temporarily or permanently, including the host, and while I enjoy going to that area, my reason for going to that apartment is gone.
There are other areas. An apartment near Sonnenallee - a place I used to spend a lot of time, since a good friend used to live there - someone I used to know. Gropiusstadt and Rudow, suburbs in far south Berlin where I used to teach and live for the first year I lived here. In this case, I don't have to avoid the area - Rudow is so far south that I'm seldom there more than once a year, but even if it were closer, I wouldn't go there.
In the twenty-odd years I lived in Melbourne, it seems I've only acquired a handful of ghosts - mostly around my old high school. But here in Berlin, I have a lot more. More than anything this is a reflection of the difference between life in Melbourne, in my home city, and life in Berlin, as an expat. People come and go here - you develop a good group of friends, then suddenly, two or three move on to other countries or back to their home country, and you have to start over. It can be difficult, but it's something you get used to. It's part of being an expat.
It has its perks though - you have accommodation offers in cities all over the world! :)
