Berlin

I've gotten behind on my blogging. I'm sorry! But I was in Berlin a few weekends ago to visit my good friends Roland and Rhino, who now live in a very...er...interesting GDR-era apartment at Alexanderplatz. (They live on the sixth floor and the elevator stops on the fourth and seventh floors. How strange.)

Since my exchange year, I've felt that Berlin is a second home. It's a city I know well and has so many different facets which I love (the East-West divide, the Turkish community, random communes in the middle of Kreuzberg, Trabant safaris....). But this time, I guess I just didn't feel it as much. Berlin is just...changing. Always. And right now, with the seemingly constant influx of giant shopping centers and expensive boutiques, I'm not so sure it's for the better.

For example, I went to the Oberbaumbrücke on Warschauer Straße to attempt to take some pictures of the Fernsehturm from afar.


Much to my dismay, the formerly nearly empty stretch of land between Friedrichshain and Ostbahnhof has now become home to several giant Costco-/Home Depot-like megastores. It took me quite awhile to get a picture without a sign of those centers or some stupid billboard in it. Very disappointing.


(Do you see the Turm there in the background, to the right?)

In Kreuzberg, I found some of what I really love: crazy artwork and graffiti.




At least some things have been left unspoiled!