Berlin in Fall

Even after I knew I wouldn’t take my intermediates, plans continued to change, originally I planned to go round the Baltic Sea clockwise, possibly including Sweden. But then I stumbled across the final conference of a research project concerning mental health and migration to be held in Berlin on the second weekend of October. So I adapted my plan to see my parents for two days, continue to Berlin to attend the conference, and take the night bus to Vilnius.

Homebase: Hamburg

 

Berlin is unusually charming this weekend, mild temperatures, blue skies and trees blazing with changing leaves. After I arrived even later than planned on Thursday (thanks to German Railway), I leave Dana’s place in Moabit with all my luggage including a new green backpack and a cotton shopping bag holding my winter jacket as I will spend the next two nights at another friend’s house. The bus station is next to a bridge crossing an entrance of the Westhafen (western harbor), smooth black water still covered in some morning mist. After storing my bags at the central station I take a short walk to the lecture hall next to the hospital.

View from the Wall memorial at the Invalidenpark in Berlin

 

Although there is a huge construction site covering more or less the whole area between the central station and the Charité University Hospital, the whole city seems calm to me. I realize Cairo has more or less established itself as my benchmark for big cities, so every place with multi lane crossroads, but less traffic, shouting and blowing horns feels tidy and quiet to me.

The conference is aiming at the center of my research interest and I’m not disappointed by the talks and discussions. Some information on the project dealing with epidemiological differences between Germans, Turks in Turkey and people of Turkish descent living in Germany, their different illness models and access to and usage of the health care system can be found here. I successfully invite one of the professors to hold a session at my university in a Global Health course some friends and I are developing and I get an internship at the Charité for next year, so it’s been a 100% success.

On Saturday night Susanne, Hanne another friend of theirs and I have dinner in a new Korean restaurant in their neighborhood. The owner also is an opera singer and she agrees that it’s a quite courageous thing to start a new restaurant in Prenzlauer Berg, as there are so many places to eat in this area and competition is tough. I never ate Korean food before and find it quite different from Chienese, Japanese or any Asian (or other) cuisine I know, but very delicious. Susanne has to finish my fish soup, though, it is too spicy even for me. I in turn finish Hanne’s cabbage wraps and the evening passes in an animated exchange of travel experiences from different Asian countries. And I definitely recommend Kochu Karu, delicious food from best ingredients with a charming owner, a kitchen behind glass and a very balanced interior combining an old fashioned ceiling with plain furniture from light wood blocks and a custom made painting all around the three walls that tells the story of a tiger carrying great food from Korea to Berlin.