Last week I was in Berlin for the Re:Publica Conference to help with a blogger party dubbed “NetShelterHaus” and came back with a great respect for that city. Here are some of my thoughts.

BERLIN - Imagine a city full of political graffiti, modern architecture and the Spree River running right through the middle of it. It’s the absolute opposite of the American stereotypes of Germans in lederhosen (unless you count the fetishists) and as a San Franciscan accustomed to the sometimes bizarre, I loved it.

Berlin still remains a city divided. While the West is full of high end restaurants, shopping districts and young stylish professionals, the East is pregnant with outsider art, punks and purposeful crazy people. My trips to the Reichstag and the East Side Gallery were of course amazing, but it was in the small nooks of smoke-filled neighborhoods that I fell in love with the city. Over too many Feltons and plates full of currywurst, the conversations about new technologies, the fall of the Wall, and of course David Hasselhoff were highly amusing.

I know there’s so much lost in translation but everyone I met seemed to offer a similar mantra about becoming whole and pursuing your magnum opus. Like an ironic page from AdBusters Magazine, blue haired artists and stern government diplomats alike would unknowingly and matter-of-factly recite the Nike tagline, “Just Do It.”

In the din of the Köpenicker Straße building’s Sage Club, the owner volunteered the story of how the building’s lower level Neanderstraße GN-Bahn station was decommissioned when the wall went up. I don’t know if he was embellishing, but apparently soldiers had waited with guns drawn to ensure that no one was sneaking through. Engulfed in mid-nineties grunge music, I remembered how an East German friend’s passage to America included a brisk swim across the Spree. I wondered how she and her family had decided to “Just Do It”.

Clearly as an ugly North American with only one week of Berlin under my belt I could never comprehend the enormity of seeing a city as beautiful and vibrant as this bear the burden of such a weight. But like interesting people, interesting cities tend to carry the scars of a complicated past. I’ve only scratched the surface, but aided with the help of new friends, I can’t wait to return and explore.