We continue to surrender to the Christian notion of life as pilgrimage, changing places again in four-week cycles after having moved on every Sunday for three weeks. Every new place a risk. It can be nice there and even beautiful. But it can also become ugly and boring. It is always, however, a surprise and partly a challenge.

Berlin is not the destination. A place with loose but important connections. Not a place of arrival, but one of passage in the great transition. No man's land. And through this land I wander in haste. Time here passes faster than in other places. I have appointments and obligations that I work through. I go to doctors and take my car to the garage. I drive to the office where I look into many new faces, which intensifies my feeling of general alienation.

We plan the next phase. "The traveling was the easy part," she says. "Finding a permanent accommodation will be hard." Right now it even feels impossible. But this feeling that tries to push me down, I counter with positive thoughts and action. I keep myself in motion so that I cannot be pulled down by the darkness.

Yet Berlin depresses me. Even in sunshine the city seems cold and repelling, as if it were hurling its ugliness shamelessly into my face. And when the sky hangs heavy and lead-gray over the rooftops and the rain falls in endless streams, it seems to crush me outright.

Human masses push through the streets, in the air lies a mixture of cheap perfume, sweat and despair. Beggars on every corner and all those young people who have no clue about fashion. In the subway the air is thick as a sack of lead and it feels as if life were being pressed from my lungs, or the sharp stench of urine burns in my nose until I feel sick.

The longing for a retreat—a paradise that can only exist in the boldest dreams—is a comforting notion. Our accommodation is a place of retreat, but no paradise. And I am glad not to have to leave it. How I experience the city and the people leads to fundamental questions about life, inner satisfaction and the search for a better existence.

I have oriented myself too long toward people who could give me no orientation. I have no answers, no direction, only dreams. Are dreams all that remains to me? My whole life dreams were what gave me some meaning. It is still so today. They are visions of a quiet life, one with warmth and meaning—all that which I will not find here.

Some people grew up in paradise and it became who they are. Wherever they go, whatever they do, paradise is a part of them. I grew up in paradise, but I lost it at a very young age. Wherever I go I look for it, try to find it, just to feel whole again.