. . . there was the chicken or the egg. . . . . but in our beginning, there was Gypsy, the oracular carefree spirit who seemingly floated from another dimension to a hostel in Zurich bringing inspiration from a place we were soon to discover: Berlin. “Berlin is a magical place,” he said, "you can do anything in Berlin." And that is what we did.
About 2 weeks after having met purely by chance in Zurich and then traveling our separate ways, we reunited in Berlin.
"I remember sitting in my hostel bunk, hungover and wondering what the hell to do next when a knock sounded on the door. There was Mar, totally unexpected,
but nonetheless completely welcome. We wasted no time getting outside in the sun and exploring the streets around Senefelderplatz. First impression: I think I am going to like this city and this girl still seems pretty sane even though she came and hunted me down in my hostel. I think this could work."-Lauren 
"I wasn't even gonna go to Berlin, but I figured it would be a good place to round out my trip if we didn't end up being able to stay. I was also interested in exploring the city my father lived in for 10 years of his life and had heard wonderful things about it. I went to Lauren's hostel hoping to get her to come explore the city and see whether we could really make it here. So I took her to the boat and we made our first progress. We had nothing to lose. " -Marissa Berlin was our goal for several reasons: 1) affordable 2) cultural goldmine and incredible city 3) Lauren's year of Uni in Goettingen & German language skills / Marissa's expensive German beginners class in Zurich that she hoped one day would pay off. Our plan of attack was to find jobs, get visas, and then see where life took us.
The first few weeks were a whirlwind of bike rentals, accommodation changes, new people, research in internet cafes (occasionally interrupted by turkish marital disputes), Lebenslauf schicken, and the entire visa Prozess. (Not to mention checking out some very cool places in Berlin in the process and falling in love with every minute of every day here...) After some hard work and dedication, we landed our first job: working at a cafe. The next day we turned them down since they were apparently looking for legal workers and we didn't quite have our work visas just yet.
A few weeks later we landed a more promising prospect teaching English to children.
Lauren eventually ended up deciding to go for a paid internship at a website and was beginning to regret the decision weeks later when she was still waiting for a visa. In the meantime, Marissa was driving the Kinder car to the outskirts of Berlin risking racial backlash to educate the children of Germany in the English language (as well as diversity as it turned out) while receiving several pictures in the mail from the German highway Paparazzi to which she made several donations.
A few weeks later we landed a more promising prospect teaching English to children.
Lauren eventually ended up deciding to go for a paid internship at a website and was beginning to regret the decision weeks later when she was still waiting for a visa. In the meantime, Marissa was driving the Kinder car to the outskirts of Berlin risking racial backlash to educate the children of Germany in the English language (as well as diversity as it turned out) while receiving several pictures in the mail from the German highway Paparazzi to which she made several donations.And those were our first steps in this great capital city. Starting out with nothing but backpacks, motivation, and true grit, we managed to overcome the many challenges that life threw our way. Over two years later, we are stil here and still loving this crazy city.
