A Million Dreams

The terrific beauty and diversity of Berlin has always impressed me. Berlin is a colorful city that encour-ages people to feel free and be different. Each of the twelve districts of the city has its own history that shaped the heart of it. Charlottenburg and Zehlen-dorf in the West, where you find the old-established upper class, Marzahn in the East with its typical socialist GDR architecture, Schöneberg with its large gay community, Prenzlauer Berg with its many helicopter parents and their children, Kreuzberg and its large Turkish community, to give only a few examples of the diversity of Berlin. When I grew up in Berlin some of my friends were DJ’s, bartenders, musicians or artists. Many of them still are. They never gave up celebrating their life in the city that never sleeps. I had exciting times with them, and I believe those years strengthened my character and broadened my horizon. I met people of all different kinds, colors and sexual orientation,and sometimes I got into situations that were dangerous. But then again I often experienced joy, friendship and love.After graduating from university I worked in the marketing department of Sony Germany and had theopportunity to create wonderful marketing cam-paigns with well-known celebrities. I was invited to extraordinary parties in hidden places and clubs. At the time, I attended almost every movie premiere of Sony Pictures and went to the so-called after-show parties. I regularly received invitations to fashion shows or launch parties of new perfume fragrances. Almost every Thursday we had after-work parties until the early morning hours. We had a wonderful time. Berlin also has fantastic street festivals like the Karneval der Kulturen, Christopher Street Day, the Festival of Lights, during which buildings and places of interest are illuminated, Fête de la Musique, and the famous New Year’s Party at Brandenburg Gate.When I was still living in Berlin I went to every single one of them. I love the atmosphere of people coming together, celebrating peacefully with thou-sands of others, showing their support and respect for other nationalities or sexual orientations, or just being different in general.I used very colorful paper and pictures of flam-boyant street art pieces to create a firework of colors. This picture shows several of my favorite places in Berlin during the Festival of Lights: the OberbaumBridge, the Victory Column, Brandenburg Gate, Theater des Westens, Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Hackescher Markt train station and the TV Tower – all illuminated.For my 18th birthday, one of my friends gave me a postcard saying: Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Berlin. The left part of the picture shows Good girls go to heavenwhile the right side shows Bad girls go to Berlin. The girl in the middle, me, has clearly picked Berlin (the girl holding a B in her hand).