Viva Bavaria

I left Bavaria a year ago and everything there’s been falling apart since. The CSU is collapsing, Bayern Munich looks hopeless, and my family stopped showing up for each other’s birthdays. There’s the picture: Bavaria in freefall, and somehow it’s my fault for leaving. I moved to Berlin, to the Prussians and their tired jokes—something about Bavarian walls, something about Bayern at the World Cup, something about getting stabbed at the train station in ten minutes. The same old shit, but it sticks with you.

But I’ll go back eventually. The mountains pull at you. The landscape, the culture, the girls—it’s impossible to resist forever. So hold on down there, you blue-and-white faithful. There’s still hope.

Just not yet. London first. My mother lived there years back, so there’s something genetic pulling me that direction. After London, after time, probably Bavaria again. Once you leave home you realize you can’t fully leave it, but you try anyway.

At least the Munich town hall made it into the Berlin phone book. That’s something.