In Paul Graham’s famous essay Cities and Ambition, there’s this idea that some cities are centers for some type of ambition, and when you come to one of those cities, you can feel the message the city is sending to you. For example, the message that you can feel in New York is “You should be richer,” while Berkeley’s is “You should live better,”... See more

Berlin was going to be different. If there was anything I’d heard more about this city than its unmatched freedoms, it was that anyone could afford a decent life here on a part-time job’s salary. Universities were free for everyone. I’d enrolled in a master’s program for the visa and found a student job in my first week. I moved into a shared

... See more