On Embracing Your Preconceived Notions

YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR Did you know that I went to Berlin two years ago? I did. I spent a little over two weeks there, on the cusp of winter. It was unbearably cold, and dark; it looked like 9:30am all day until night fell in mid-afternoon. I arrived in darkness after an 11-hour train ride, during which I tried and failed miserably to commit to memory the incomprehensible combination of letters that is basic German vocabulary.