“Aren’t you homesick?” people ask when they first note my German’s British shades. “What do you miss most of all?” they continue, adopting a sympathetic tone. I take their questions seriously and think hard about what I could say. A series of frivolous consumer products and old favourite, high street shop fronts flickers through my mind – Cadbury’s chocolate, Yorkshire black tea, a preferred face cleanser, the shoe shop on London’s Bond Street where each shoe fits like it has been made especially for me – all of which seem far too superficial to be worth mentioning. I hesitate some more.
See, the truth is I am still too much in love with Berlin for any of my idle fancies to count as homesickness. Expat life here, two and a bit years and a pair of twins later, remains charmingly novel; Berlin’s prominent and more hidden gems are mine to discover and then proudly revel in with our many visitors. READ MORE »
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