Berlin

Berlin is the city in Germany where the narrator lives with her flatmate Vavra. Vavra meets the narrator online and lets her "move into her apartment" (2). Their life together comes "to form a texture of cohabitation that could almost be called a friendship" (2). However, the narrator's life in Berlin is largely defined by her solitude. She often declines Vavra's offers to go out, because she prefers to spend her time reading, writing, and studying in her room alone.

The narrator's perception of Berlin changes after she sees Moon in concert and falls in love with him. Discovering Moon makes the narrator "wonder about all the other first times out there to be had," about all of the world's other "secret avenues of devotion" (8). Although the narrator does start to spend more time online watching, researching, and writing about Moon, she also starts wandering the streets of Berlin after...