As I leave Berlin, I think about whether my opinion of the city changed at all. I am disappointed to say that no, it didn’t. Now, don’t get me wrong. I had a fabulous time. Berlinale was as productive as I had hoped it would be. I stayed here with 4 wonderful friends (6 if you count the friends not actually staying in the flat with us, but a minute or so away), and created some excellent memories. We worked long hours, played hard when we got the chance, saw the sights, and had a fabulous time.

I had wonderful nights hanging out with new friends from the UK, Southern Germany, Munich, and Ireland. I had incredible turkish food, saw inventive burlesque, learned how to properly drink feigling (complete with cap on the nose),

thumb wrestled a pro boxer, and navigated the city during a public transit strike. (hint: that only affects the underground trains)

But, truth be told, I always find Berlin cold. The people, not the weather. You’ll notice that none of the new friends are from Berlin. Berliners could use a couple of pointers on being friendly. The use of the words “please” or “excuse me” wouldn’t hurt, either (strangely, “thank you” is in full effect)

And while there are a couple parts of Berlin which are striking, the majority of Berlin was built after the war, and looks like any other major city which has no character. when listening to people talk about it, the same story feels like it is on repeat: “there was something really great right here, then it was completely bombed out, so this lifeless building was erected in its place. But trust me, before, it was pretty cool.”

Therefore, I declare it here. Next time I come back to Berlinale, I will take a few days, and go somewhere outside of Berlin to discover what it is that people love about this country.

Travel is one of the passions in my life. Places, people, cultures, languages. And yet it is a totally different experience when I leave the country for work.

I have a strange relationship with travel and work. I’ve traveled the entire world for work. In my early twenties, I got my passport stamped from most of the countries that people have on their wish list. I met people all over the globe based on these travels. I feel lucky to have had that experience, and yet, most of the countries I’ve been to for work, I have seen very little of. I would fly in, perform for 1-3 nights, and fly out (or train out to the next gig) immediately.

So now, as I travel for work, I refuse to travel in that same way. I insist on taking a day or two to experience the city as I want to, or visit another place. I have, for the past couple of years, refused to waste the travel opportunity anymore.

Los Angeles as an entity encourages myopia, and this is one of the ways that I fight against it. Be it taking a couple days to raft down the Amazon when scouting Sao Paulo, or taking a couple days in Bath after doing meetings in London.

So, as I sign off for Germany (and Spain on the way back), I look at the upcoming 18 hour days of work with a joyous anticipation of the couple of days after them where I get to calm into a couple cities I love.

The smell of bleach has always been one of those things that I have a love/hate relationship with. I absolutely adore the way that the smell means something is ridiculously clean. I hate how overpowering it is, and how much it lingers past any other smell that is around it.

But then you have to think about the nature of bleach, and how it works. It literally makes proteins disassociate. This is no small feat, as the alpha helices and folded chains are some of the most difficult to separate. And yet, they are made to fall apart under the power of bleach.

Lately, I’ve been cleaning with bleach. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a cleaner that was completely bleach based. This isn’t something I normally do. The smell gives me mixed feelings about the idea of clean and destruction. Yet, I scrubbed the house down with it. The sink kept getting dirty, and I kept spraying it down. I used it directly on the bathroom floor instead of mopping. In dusting the shelves, I kept spraying it onto paper towels, and wiping down my environment with this instead of using normal dusting spray.

Last weekend, before I had a small dinner party, the entire house had been wiped down with it.

Yesterday, I walked in to my place, and it no longer smelled like bleach. It smelled like my perfume, my new sachets, and books. It smelled like me. And I was, finally, for the first time in nearly a year, comfortable.

And I realized what I had been doing. Cleaning had become a manifestation of my mental state. I had been trying to break apart a strand I had become caught in. The beta sheets and looped chains I found myself caught in needed to be broken. Bleach had become my way of trying to release myself from the horrific restrictive chains before I could say the words.

But now, looking around, surrounded by the familiar smells of comfort, I start to distinguish. I see the individual building blocks which I am looking forward to stringing back together in a manner that no longer needs to be broken apart. And I smile. And that smile is a happier one than I have had in the past year.