With dreams of romantic hot air balloon rides over Cappadocia with my cousin Drew soon to become a reality, I can’t help but remember my first trip abroad, backpacking through Eastern Europe.
Ah, backpacking through Europe, the staple finding yourself quest of post-collegiate white Americans.
…but this trip would be somewhat different, as i would be meeting ex-pat Hooligan crony John Bradrian on the other side of the pond, where he had been living the bohemian lifestyle in his babcia’s commie flat for quite some time. And it would be done in the dead of winter. And of course, the memory of said trip returns once more, if only for the sighting of this weird Turkish child, bouncing about on his dad’s lap and cooing gibberish. He had an appropriate sized head but the face of a grown man. Henceforth he was, and would be for the next 4 years, referred to as Berlin Boy, owing to the fact that he was spotted whilst riding on Berlin’s S-bahn transport system.
Silverboy in the Promised Land 