Europe Day 5: Berlin to Mannheim

Remembrances of breaking bread

The sun was low in the sky as we arrived in Mannheim, my stop for the night, the conductor checking our tickets just before I got off the train-ship.

I knew no one in this place, and that realisation made me think about the night before when I had shared a meal with Oskar and his fiancee at an est. 1913 traditional Berlin corner pub. We had a wide selection of dishes - which meant mostly variations on meat and potatoes! While the food took me back to my childhood (things my grandma used to make in the our kitchen above the Sarajevo brewery), it was the human connection, the camaraderie, the exchange of stories and experiences that made Berlin special for me.

As much as it is nice to explore a place on one’s own and get lost in it, it is a more comforting place when you have someone there. Not only to give you the inside guide to a city, but to witness your presence in this new place. And not to mention that you are able to sit and join in the ritual of a meal, converse about all your shared moments together that led you to this point. From so far, to share the same space, to breathe the same air. It is so human and yet something I never appreciated or fully engaged in and had erased during the pandemic. To have gotten to Berlin to meet a friend felt like winning a set against lockdown’s after effects.