Saying Goodbye to Berlin
We have been in Berlin for the past 10 days and we are packing to head to Amsterdam today. This is an amazing city, but not for its physical beauty, but for the amount of life and energy that it has. There are so many old, East German buildings still standing that are very plain and lack any beauty, nothing like Prague or Budapest. Berlin is about something else, it’s about the people and the amount of life that exists here. The street art is amazing and the River Spree is beautiful. The amount of parks, including Tiergarten, Tempelhof Airfield, Thai Park and Mauer Park, make this a very breathable city with lots of open spaces.
Our experience in Mauer Park last Sunday was extremely special, and finding another tennis match was great, as well as going to the top of the Reichstag Building and seeing a few great museums. But, this week in Berlin was highlighted for me by meeting a number of Rotarians and having an opportunity to talk with a local Rotary club here yesterday. I met Arne Krueger first at his office on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday. Arne is one of the most self aware and intelligent entrepreneurs that I have met in a long time. Then he introduced me to Honor and Frank, two more Rotarians that I got to meet yesterday. It turns out that their speaker had fallen ill so they asked me to replace him. I had a blast, talking about my journey from a place I have never done before. It was a place of being, of just being myself and explaining my journey and what I have learned without judgement or needing anything from the audience. I was just present and sharing my story.
After the meeting I was blessed with another 2 hours with Honor, a walking angel who just lights up the world. We talked about life and making a difference and dedicating ourselves to being our highest self. We are only here for a short time and we need to do our life’s work, not what we have learned to do in order to make money. We need to let our loved ones live their life and not try to make them live ours. We talked about so many powerful topics, I look forward to staying connected with Honor.
In the end I will remember Berlin as much as any city we have visited. I will also remember how much we walked, because we walked a lot. Probably more than we walked in Rome, and that was a lot. I will remember the view from the top of the Reichstag and the laughs we had at the dinner table. There seems to be something about our family and the dinner table, we seem to have many of our best laughs when we are sitting and eating together. I will also remember the burger at Burgermeister in Kruezberg and the kabob I had with Noah near Tempelhof airfield. Food, people and open spaces, not a bad way to remember an amazing city.
To a life well lived!
Larry Kesslin 