A diamond as big as the Ritz

An old picture of me which is the closest I can get to the EAT PRAY LOVE look. The "I look so natural and free-spirited! When in fact I took hours to find this flattering angle!"



Last night I was tired after work and decided to go see a shitty movie. That movie turned out to be Eat Pray Love. I had listened to the book while running and not really gotten into the whole guru-following, yoga-practicing balooney idea that spirituality was something you could wilfully acquire. Anyway, I just wanted to see Javier Bardem and James Franco.
It turned out to be the film première, and to celebrate it, some German magazine called HAPPY had organised for glasses of sparkly wine to be distributed around. All the women in the theatre were rather tipsy then, and giggled extremely loudly. I struck up a conversation with my two neighbours, who were speaking bad French to each other, and we quickly decided that we liked each other. Funny how that works.

So the movie was very depressing. BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPES...JULIA ROBERTS AND HER GIGANTIC MOUTH...Finally some Javier Bardem.

The story of Liz Gilbert is supremely relatable. I suffer from depression, I know almost no one who hasn't felt trapped in their lives at least once, this is good material. I may hate the mumbo jumbo of the ashram episode, but I could certainly respond to her other themes. Food is my antidepressant of choice...

When I left the movie house, I felt very unhappy. Vividly unhappy for the first time in months. I simply did not want to go home. Going home meant going to sleep, and that meant coming closer to waking up and going to work. I decided to drink a cocktail at the Ritz.

The Ritz Hotel in Berlin is right behind the Sony Centre and Potsdamer Platz, formerly known as No Man's Land. It's now a land of hotels and office space. I swept inside and ordered a Virgin Berlin. My bike was waiting outside and I don't drink and drive...

It was a perfectly soothing experience. Lavish, extravagant, dumb. Sipping my 11 Euro cocktail, I sank into the thick leather bar stool. I think I waited for an hour for my melancholy to go away.

Years ago my sister and I would sometimes dine with our grandfather at the Ritz for Christmas. We would wear our nicest clothes and people watch: older men with ravishing young women, plastically enhanced bimbos, and the occasional family treat scene, like us.

I miss my sister so much. Sipping my Virgin Berlin, trying not to go home, feeling low, I thought of her in America, and felt strangely comforted.

I rode home gently, feeling at peace.

A wonderful spiritual experience A nice drink in a nice bar is sometimes all it takes.