I grew up in Berlin, starting a few months after I was born up until the summer between the fifth and sixth grades. When we moved back to the states, I was com

I grew up in Berlin, starting a few months after I was born up until the summer between the fifth and sixth grades. When we moved back to the states, I was completely shocked at how the cities felt, because they didn't feel anything like Berlin. Since Berlin was the only city I really knew well, I had naively assumed that all cities were like Berlin; it took me a while to realize that Berlin was the exception, not the normal case. But there were places in America that reminded me of Berlin: places right on the line between "large town" and "small city." Not exactly like Berlin, but a very similar feel. Of course, all of this was from the perspective of an eleven/twelve-year-old, so I could have been missing a lot of stuff that an adult would have noticed. Also, for almost the entire time I lived there, the wall was up and I would imagine that things have changed significantly since then. We left after the wall came down but not long enough after for things to have changed significantly yet--the summer before official re-unification, IIRC.