Good lord. I feel as though the day has disappeared into a hole of internet-induced nothingness. It began with yesterday’s revelation that the heretofore non-functioning internet should now be working just fine. Well, it is now 10:15pm, and, though I got a few things done today and remembered to eat and drink caffeinated drinks, most of today’s time has been absolutely demolished by booking apartments, checking train schedules, watching a Phish concert on a major network’s website, and video chatting with loved ones. I suppose it’s not a total loss: those are all valuable activities, right? I mean, I still have a good forty minutes left before my brain is absolutely fried from overexposure, and I did manage to pen around 1,500 words… but of my plans to get more done, which were so well planned… nothing. There were no actual activities today. Thus go my plans the way of so many laid by both mice and men.

Not to be too much of a downer.

I was thinking today at the café: I can’t help but to draw comparisons between Germany and Italy, another place where I have had my share of espressos and cappuccinos: I am glad that things here move more quickly in some places and more slowly in others when compared to things in the places I’ve visited in Italy. Things here move at just the right pace for me. Business moves quickly, but sitting in a café for a few hours and sipping coffee is not in any way frowned upon. People don’t seem to waste any time, but they never seem to be in a hurry. In Italy, on the other hand, things happen at reversed speeds: business moves so slowly that it sometimes appears to have halted altogether, and one often must pay a higher fee if one wishes to sit and relax in a café than if one will take one’s drink at the bar and then walk away immediately thereafter. The differences are just so striking, and I suppose all of my judgments come down to personal preference and my personality.

My neighborhood for the week in Mitte, Berlin, Germany

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