Berlin, Chapters 1-4


"I hope it will add up to more than a pile of stones" (p. 80)
I'm not sure this is exactly what Herr Severing is talking about, but I can't help but to think of images like this anyway.

The first major European city I ever went to, thankfully was Prague, Czech Republic. Prague is the only major European city not bombed in the war. It is glorious.

My dream city to go to had always been Vienna, but when I went, I somehow forgot that it, unlike Prague, had been bombed out. I was still thinking about Prague, of streets that wonderful composers and writers had walked on centuries before. Vienna is surrounded on its periphery by government-subsidized housing slums. I do not want to go back to Vienna.