This part is the same as it's ever been...

I am dreading my departure from Berlin. Nothing emotional here, I swear, I am simply dreading the actual act of having to move my things into a two canvas receptacles and carry them, bag lady style, onto several modes of transport. My current estimation, barring any unforeseen S-Bahn nightmares, stands at 5: U-Bahn, S-Bahn, Plane, Bus and then Taxi. The last two should read Easyjet shuttle bus and then big red TFL Bus but I know that by the time I arrive at Victoria I will be flirting with losing my will to live and will in all probability cave and get a taxi.

I am sad to be leaving but in all honesty I make it my business to leave places. I never want to go, but I always do. I try not to dwell on it too much, I just up and leave. It’s quite possibly both the best and worst thing about me. So even if I am not all that keen on departing my current location, I always enjoy where I am going next. And so I continue doing it, this ridiculous cycle that appears to have no end in sight. Anymore, it’s the bit in-between I don’t love. It’s not the flying, which I am fine with. It’s not even the airports, the waiting, the queues, the ridiculously overpriced and always horrific coffee. No. It’s the carrying stuff. I hate carrying stuff. It’s awkward and heavy and it makes my shoulders hurt and then my jacket twists around and gets caught in my bag strap and I start to overheat and berate myself for not working out, for not being more physically capable of the stupid act, and then my hands will hurts and there is always a point, somewhere along the line, where I just want to drop my bags, drop myself onto them, put my head in my hands and have a small but distinct weep. Nothing too dramatic. No ugly cry face and heaving sobs, my hat falling forwards off my head and my knees giving out under me and the ensuing human crumple effect. No, something dignified. A single glistening tear, a shuddering breath. You know. That sort of thing.

Anyway, like most horrendous tasks, it’s always best to keep an idea of your end goal in mind. A bit of motivation, the carrot on a string, if you will. So, with my return to London and the hell it will take to get there, my carrot on a string (read: cupcake) list goes something like this:
(please note I am excluding people as if I start naming names, or not naming them, as the case might be, I am asking for trouble.)

Good Glassware
My apartment in Berlin, while huge and fantastic, is where ugly shit has come to die. It’s oddly laid out, strangely furnished (did I fail to mention previously this apartment has no dining table but an inexplicable 16 chairs? SIXTEEN!) and the cutlery, crockery and general kitchen items leave much to be desired. I am a bit of a glass snob and like my wine glasses big as bell jars and so thin that the tap of a fingernail at the wrong angle results in rogue cracks and broken stems. In Berlin I have been drinking my wine out of small tumblers that look akin to tea light holders. Which is fine when you’re in Italy and there are old men drinking grappa and playing cards all around you and the wine comes in unmarked bottles and is sloshed more than poured. But I’m not in Italy. I’m in Berlin. And I have missed good wine glasses.

Martinis
I have not had a Martini since I left London. I love Martinis. Super dry, extra dirty, with at least two olives. Berlin is a lot of things; it's punks and dogs and anarchists and hardcore fetish techno clubs. It’s also a desolate tract as far as the shaken mixed drink is concerned. Magpie and I went to a so called cocktail bar with the express intent of finding martinis, but left after 17 or so tense seconds as it was so awfully fromagey it made us have a dual mini sick. I also usually keep martini fixings at home; however one cannot drink a martini from a small tea light tumbler.

Albert Bridge
Albert Bridge is London’s most beautiful bridge. Tower Bridge can keep it’s bascules, it’s Disney castle towers. Richmond can keep it’s smooth stone arches and storybook background. For me, it is all about the pale pink and green span of Albert bridge stretching across the Thames, connecting Battersea to Chelsea. I love the view from the bridge, the little octagonal toll booths on either end, the signs that say ‘All troops must break step when marching over this bridge.’ I love the way, at night, it glows; 4000 little round light bulbs shining as if their tiny tungsten half lives depend on it.

The Sunday Papers
Lots of coffee, spreading all the sections of all the papers out, flitting between them all before dedicating myself to any one, admiring the clothes in the style sections, hating the models, hating the writers, hating the news, HATING the columnists, pretending to be more highbrow than I actually am and finally chucking it in and devouring the smut paper I’ve secretly bought and deriving masses of guilty pleasure from it.

High Heels
My feet have been languishing in flats. Berlin is too cobbled and frankly, a bit casual, to traipse around in heels all day. I’ve worn heels here in the evenings, as under the cover of darkness the cool Berliners cannot see nor sneer at my inappropriate foot wear. I’ve missed wearing high heels in the daylight. How I love a skyscraper shoe and full light in which to appreciate the full glory of it.

Meals in Chiswick that defy classification
The ones that start as brunch and turn into afternoon tea and then cocktail hour and then dinner and next thing you know, I’m sleeping in Shelley and Paul’s spare room because the trains have stopped running and there was wine involved.

So.Back to London. London again. I can’t even count anymore how many times I have left that place. Or more fittingly, I suppose, how many times I have gone back.