City of Contrast

A friend of mine from back home had asked me to elaborate on my thoughts on Berlin, as what I said to him came across as a bit of mixed feelings. I've found the best way to describe Berlin is as a city of contrasts. You'll know what I mean if you've been here, if not I can explain further.

One day Robert and I were strolling along the Berlin Wall at a section called the East End Gallery (one of 3 large remaining sections), it's a famous section which had once been a major attraction to artists, now most of the original layers of paint have crumbled off or been chipped away at people wanting to sell parts of the Berlin Wall, so it's a mixture of crappy graffiti and what was once there. We stumbled upon an enterance to a bar situated between the wall and the Spree River.. the bar was a man-made beach with loads of sand and deckchairs. So there amoungst history is a new-age bar resembling something from South-East Asia.

Berlin's a city with loads of awesome old buildings, some of which still have bullet holes from WW2, a piece of history again.. but then you look down at ground level and the walls are covered in crappy graffiti.

You can buy a bottle of fizzy apple juice for around €1.30 or a 500ml bottle of beer for €1.20. Actually you can buy beer much cheaper off the shelf in supermarkets, which still ends up around € 0.40 cheaper than 1L of milk.

There are more examples but I think you can get the gist, besides, I'm going up to Hamburg today so most of my attention is focused on that, and not on updating my blog with interesting facts and stories. Some more information on what Robert and I have been doing... checked out Topographie ds Terrors (1 of the 3 remaining stretches of The Wall which has been left in its original state, and once site of the SS headquarters!), played hide-and-seek in the Jewish Memorial last night scaring people, found the former site of Hitler's bunker (nothing special), saw the Brandenberg Gate flood-lit at night, drank beers on a bridge with a hundred people on a work night here in Kreuzberg.