On the rare late fall day when blue sky pierces Berlin’s chronic dark gray, I bike across the river from my Friedrichshain neighborhood to Treptower Park.  Unlike Tiergarten, whose lovely ponds and clumps of flora are constantly interrupted by city streets, the paths in Treptower Park stretch luxuriously for miles, like a good long yawn.  The walk along the river is crowded with others craving the sunshine: blinking older couples with their ancient dogs, shivering teenage girls in thin tights and mini skirts, the odd indie rock band doing a photo shoot for their upcoming ill-fated album (the good looking singer strides out in front, the dumpy drummer skulking in the back, the photographer-girl-groupie clicking away).  When the path dead-ends, I cut across a parking lot to the paved trail that snakes back through the woods, my favorite part of the ride.  The autumn trees are aflame and the leaves churn in clouds of violet, gold and rust under my wheels.  Sometimes I shout things or sing, happy to delude myself with the notion that I am miles from anywhere and not only a few meters from the main path.  Treptower Park’s biggest attractions are its oversized Soviet War Memorial and the creepy abandoned amusement park in its center, but I like it for the most obvious of parkly reasons: its ability to suspend my urban disbelief. (Brittani Sonnenberg)