Berlin, back after five years. Nothing changed, except for me. Old friends live the same old city live. Inconvenient change like graying hair is covered up, the city prefers them young. The city is always hungry for fresh flesh. These new faces think they’re avantgarde, but they are just too green to know any better. I remember standing in the same 20m queue in front of the same hipster coffee shop. All that’s changed is the price of the double shot, the logo plastered on the delivery service bikes, and the names of the dogs whose fecals distribute their lovely scents. City inhabitants think they’re shaping the city, but it’s exactly the reverse. The city’s desires permeate everyone within it, little by little. How else would everything in the city be the same even though many of these faces weren’t there five years ago? Everything in the city resolves around the city, it takes effort to escape its force of gravity. The city is not just scenery, it’s the director of its scavanger hunt. Its inhabitants fill the city’s million slots of performers and play by its rule: Put on the right clothes for the right Kiez. Show up in the right place at the right time, with the right people. Know the right restaurant, the right popup event, the right club, the right exhibition, the right concert. The city’s payoff for the trouble: Everyone who made it here in this fleeting moment can celebrate the feeling of having “made it” in the city. Bathe in the feeling of seeing and being seen. Is allowed to drain any self-doubt with the right substance. Party late, sleep through the morning. Put on the hangover sunglasses. Rinse. Repeat. Or flee, like me. An observer, who doesn’t belong anymore. The city had me, I played my part, until the city spat me back out. I had to change. But now I’m over Berlin.