The overnight train from over and across the Austrian border pulls in to a still sleeping Berlin. The sun rises early in the summer and through the window I can make out the cold glass and metal structures as far as my eye can see which whispers of Jozi as there is a strange familialarity and its ultra urban Industrial Appeal. Berlin is for me a place where Modern thinking is embraced to the point where there are no rules or atleast testing the rules is almost encouraged. I met up with my Australian friends for what I feared would be the last time as life would not doubt take us on spearate paths. Guided by nothing other than serendipty we gathered at the official meeting point of the famous Berlin walking tour without any prior arrangement.
A charasmatic young guide did his best to earn a complimentary buck with a wildly entertaining walk through review of the town. Berlin is a place where contrasts don't struggle against each other and on the contrary meet and fuse. The city was ruthlessly divided into East and West after the end of the Second World War when both the Russians and Allied forces claimed a stake in the devestated German territory as Berlin had symbolic Importance. East Germany and East Berlin took orders from the GDR which found its voice from Communist Mother Russia. The west was supposed to serve as a victorious tribute to Democracy. And so it was that the unusual and extroadinary cultural landscape of Berlin as formed.
My stay brought me to Plenzlauerberg, the down to earth yet currently trendy student district of East Berlin. Germans posess a strange anonymity even when they walk the streets of their own country, in that there nature appears to be reserved. But when you penetrate that hard German exterior I was utterly pleased to find some of the most fascinating and open minded people I have ever met. On that list I am pleased to name Toby, an avid student of environmental studies. He had backpacked throughout Europe and interrupted his studies with a cycling tour from Indonesia to Pakistan. Now that is what i call flying Solo. Him and his girlfriend, are planning to cycle through North and Western Africa in two months time.
The brief moment moment of like mindedness I found in conversations with Toby, like our anger at the ABSENT-minded capitalism that has thrown the world out of balance or our fascination with culture, was a moment where you truly understand the value of travel. That like mindedness in a world as diverse as our own, creates an unusual confirmation of who we are or that we truly matter. Toby had also already accomplished one of my life long imaginings which is to backpack through Mongolia while travelling with the Nomads.
With those invigorating thoughts i felt something stir in me. A genuwine desire, relentless passion for purpose. Which in my case means a desire to work, ruthlessly in film. It is mildly frustrating to be so worldly stimulated but yet without any means of self expression. But do not fear, I feel confident, that baking inside me is a vividly inspired film maker with much to say, and if anything i know that within my travels i have not been looking for a voice but for something i really wanted to say through my work. And yet just before you venture out into the world there are always those irrational insecutirities of discovering how small you are within in. Fortunately grace has blessed me with experiences which remind constanly how unique I am and that South African of Indian extraction who is lucky enough to travel extensively has an abundant wealth of culture to draw on. So watch this space, and if you have the chance.. Go to Berlin.
