Berlin

I've been in Berlin for over a week and a half. I'm starting to see a definite trend in that I tend to stay in one place for long periods of time. Who wants to move around every three days? That's fine for a ten-week trip - but not a ten-month one (or however long it turns out to be). Also, Berlin makes it easy to want to stay for an extended period of time.

I'm staying in the Kreuzeberg area, in an excellent little hostel (only 12 beds) about five U-Bahn (i.e. subway) stops from central Berlin. It's cool, in a grungey-kind of way. Lots of graffitti everywhere, but without the "hood" type of feeling you'd get if you witnessed similar sorts of graffitti in North America. Kreuzeberg is in what was West Berlin, but was an area that drew a lot of  artists and counterculture types in those days - and still does somewhat today.

I went on a couple of excellent walking tours during my first week: the first was overall "main sites" tour, while the second one focused on points of interest for us World War II history nerds. I split my visit to the German History Museum into two different days: the amount of content in that thing was unreal. I also visited the DDR museum, which shows what life was like in East Berlin. Some of the clothing styles were hilarious - they were always a little behind the west, thus explaining their embracing of polyester in the early 1980s (!). As well, saw an interesting - if mentally and emotionally exhausting - exhibit on the Gestapo and SS at the Topography of Terror - the former site of both their headquarters.

I really like the people here - they are very friendly. Most speak English, and aren't hesitant to speak it. Of course, I've made it a personal policy to always start a conversation with my standard "Sprechen sie Englisch?" (Do you speak English?), and ninety percent of the time they do. The other ten percent works out as well - I muddle through, usually by pointing or with sign language. (My other go-to German phrase is "Ich spreche kein Deutsch" - I don't speak German).

The past two days were spent touring around on a bike. There are loads of bicycle rental places here, and a huge urban biking culture. My first week here was mostly rainy and cool, but the last two days were gorgeous. My bicycle rental for the two days was free, due to the fact that I was asked to appear in a video which will appear on the bicycle rental place's website some time in the future. It only took an hour on a Sunday afternoon and was fun. It was basically myself and Nina, a girl who works at the hostel, pretending to go in and rent some bikes. No speaking. I'm interested to see how it turns out - I'll post the link when it becomes available.