Well,

I've been in Berlin for a little over a year and I love to go out, catch a concert, host couch-surfers, and cook dinner with friends. I was born to Salvadorian refugees in Canada and spent most of my summers growing up doing migrant work in California and Oregon. Road trips were inevitable and half my life has been spent in the back seat of a Ford Fiesta heading down the I5. I wouldn't say it was a bad childhood. It gave me a long time to appreciate the textures of distance, how things in the desert look smaller than they really are, and how cities always take longer to get through than all the country roads put together.

Fast forward a bit. A few years ago, while doing some research for undergraduate studies in a non-fiction course, I got in contact with my father's first son - a middle-aged German man - who lived out here in Berlin. After contacting this half-brother, I got a grant to come out to Berlin and visit him so I could write about it for my thesis. I came here in December in search of him, Christian, a man my father told me would stand out due to what our family calls "dog-like features." I met him, and oddly enough a young German man who showed me around. One thing lead to the next and I started dating the young man, Johannes, and after I graduated I moved here to further study German and get closer to these two new important people.

Currently I'm working a few hours a week for the German band, Wir Sind Helden. I teach their children English and occasionally do some grocery shopping for them. I'll be on their tour bus this fall for two weeks to help them juggle kids and music. I live with the constant expectations that things are about to change.