When I got out of the car yesterday morning in front of the office, I was instantly reminded of Berlin: The air was sub-freezing but yet still somehow clammy, a thin fog hung over everything and the sky was sealed up so tightly by a murky overcast that only the dimmest rays of the morning sun could make it all the way to the ground. Many’s the day I nearly froze my ass solid standing on a corner waiting for a bus in weather like that.

But yesterday morning I froze in my tracks in the metaphorical sense only. “Whoa!” I said, “it feels just like Berlin out here!”

My Darling B cast her eyes up and down the street. “Looks like it, too.” So it wasn’t just me.

The recollection did not trigger a longing to return to the fatherland. Winter was the least likeable thing about Berlin. I’d go back to visit in a heartbeat, but if I had the choice I’d pick a week or two in one of the summer months when there would be zero chance of ever standing hunched over in a heavy coat at a train station, counting the number of times I stamped my feet to keep warm.