When I lived in Munich for seven years, my favorite Friday ritual was wandering into the Hauptbahnhof after work, pointing at a departure board, and surrendering to wherever the rails would take me — Berlin became a recurring obsession. I first arrived in 2003, when the city wore its wounds openly, all raw edges and creative chaos, the kind of gritty, electric energy that reminded me of the East Village back home. Years later, returning to those same streets, I barely recognized the skyline or the haunts I once loved — the city had grown into itself — yet beneath the polish, that defiant authenticity still breathes. It found me on a wrong turn, lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood, when I stumbled into an open art space — the kind of happy accident that only happens in a city where art is still born from necessity, not commerce.