This morning I lazily woke up at my usual and normal time (around 7ish) but this morning I didn’t have to leap up to take our two dogs out on their normal route. I could just lay in bed and think about my day. I could get up and make a little coffee and come back to crawl under the covers. Normally, when I wake up, I lay a bit but then I know the minute I make moves to get up, the pups are up and ready. There is no lazily returning to bed.

So I indulged myself and curled up back in bed with coffee and my book and read for a bit. What a luxury! This is the stuff I enjoy when going on vacations!

A bit later, I got up and got dressed and went back to the desk and window. Realizing I was hungry and after I set up my work station, I wandered down to the corner bakery to buy my favorite pastry here (Franzbrötchen  for those taking note) and a cup of coffee than was stronger than what the airbnb pod machine put out.

I returned with my pastry bag and paper coffee cup and sitting in that spot just gave me the uumph to do a bit more. The morning after a fairly productive evening is a good one, isn’t it? I am a rare bird in Berlin it seems. The city wakes up at 10am around here. Few coffee shops are open before 10am and some bakeries might open around 8am if you are lucky. But I wake up ready to take on the words by 7am and usually hop out of bed once my eyes have adjusted. Most cities I have lived in are more along these lines but in Berlin, the world is still fairly quiet at 8 and just starts to buzz at 10, maybe 11 and definitely not until noon on weekends.

When I first moved here, this time difference of energy bugged me. I thought I was a fish out of water. I had just left Portland where people continued to get up early and launch into productive mode. That felt aligned with my energies. Here, I felt as though people looked at me funny when I mentioned that I wanted to sit at a coffeeshop early to start writing. I adjusted to being at home in the earlier hours. I set up a routine around centering myself.

But what I have realized in the last couple of years or so is that because my time clock arises earlier than the majority of the city, the city is mine before they all wake up and it turns out to be lovely. When I walk the pups at 6:30am or 7am, there is hardly anyone to bump into. It is just ours for a little bit. On weekdays, at 8 or 830 those who have to go to school or work are out and grumpy about it, dodging my dogs as they happily walk. But if I am out there at 7, we are all three happy to walk the trails without the endless line of joggers surrounding us, or hipsters sauntering or other dogs eager to bark. Its just us.

This morning as I walked to the bakery, I kind of relished the fact that there were only a few others around. At 10am when I left the airbnb to return home, the coffee lines were long and people scattered, just beginning but I felt almost like I had a delicious secret that I had already been to a coffee shop without a line and had already worked a few hours as they began. The sunlight was already mine to enjoy rather than to rush through and the computer already buzzing. This also means that I go to bed way before many in Berlin but I have also made peace with that even though the fomo is strong in me. When I hear people in the bar below our windows just gearing up for the evening as I climb into bed to read for a bit at 10:30 pm, sure to put out my lights by 11:30pm to sleep while they wander, I sometimes wonder if I have it all wrong. But listening to my body, this is the way it likes to be and I want to honor that.

So this next morning, brought me some things…I’ll take it!