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Published: February 5th 2013
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It's been awhile since I updated. Since then I left Frankfurt and returned to Düsseldorf. I stayed there for about 3 days. During my stay I went to Bundesliga soccer match between Fortuna and Stuttgart BVB. That was everything I imagined it to be. Bratwursts and Beer everywhere. Lots of excited soccer fans and a few definite hooligans. A lot like our NFL and College Football games which is kind of ironic. After that there wasn't much more excitement. I spent the next few days just being around the house with the family. I watched a detective show and to my surprise I understood most of the dialogue and the plot. My last day in Düsseldorf was on sunday, as I managed to find a cheap train ticket to Berlin and wanted to visit my other exchange sister here. I woke up early monday morning, 5 in the morning to be exact, and went to the train station to catch a 6 o clock departure. Was really impressed with the whole train experience. The train was delayed 40 minutes which confused me a little bit and I accidentally sat in the first class section, which I didn't notice until the ticket
lady started coming around and I noticed there were only business around me. Got the 1st class experience though haha. Then I went to second class and grabbed a window seat so I could check out the countryside. To be honest its not much different than our small town scene. There is just little villages scattered out everywhere with farmers and ranchers on the open land in between. Didn't see many cattle though, it was mostly sheep. Arrived in Berlin was absolutely blown away by the main train station. A multi level masterpiece with modern architecture. I had never thought a train station could look like that. I was picked up by my sister and then we started back to her house. We caught a connecting train to Friedrichshain. Friedrichshain is located in the former DDR east Berlin area.
1st Observation: Graffiti everywhere on everything. At the train station, on walls, on the sidewalk, on buildings, even places where you thought to yourself "How in the hell did someone get up there to even paint that in the first place?" The graffiti became more and more prevalent the further you got from the middle of the city, especially in
the area she lived. In Friedrichshain there was graffiti on literally 70% of the walls and buildings, and where there wasn't graffiti there were millions of posters and flyers to occupy the empty space. Sometimes the graffiti had meaning, like one building which had "Deutschland verrucke" with means Germany die basically, but mostly it was just art or tags for some group or another. Friedrichshain is a real artsy part of Berlin. Lot of hipsterish kids walking around and equally as many punks. There are a lot of little restaurants and bar/club kinda things. Lots of the buildings were in disrepair. This part of town also has some occupied houses still left. If your not familiar with that occupied houses were taken up after the reunification when houses or apartment complexes were abandoned. People would come and live there for free in a communal style living system. Some of them just needed a place to stay and for others it was a protest again Capitalism. In any case police have ousted most people from these houses in the last 10 hears or so but there are still about 6 or 7 left. I had the good fortune to see one
right by the bar where my sister works.
2nd Observation: A lot of people smoke here. By a lot I mean you can not walk the street without seeing immediately someone on their way somewhere with a cigarette in hand. There is even a subculture here among young people that its popular and cheaper to roll your own. People will be carrying around bags of tobacco with them at the bars all the time. Even though here there are huge labels on the front that read "Smoking can shorten your life span, age your skin faster, and is extremely addicting". It stops no one. Its not even just social drinking cigarettes either. Its daily routine type thing for most people. So theres that.
3rd Observation: Im thoroughly impressed and obsessed by german breakfast. Typical german breakfast is lots of fresh baked rolls of different kinds with all the toppings you want; jelly, cheese spreads, cheese, sliced meat, and butter. Lots of fresh vegetables i.e. cucumber slices cherry tomatoes. Heavily based on bread though. These breakfast rolls are called Brötchen. The thing I probably most like about it is how it seems like everyone does it basically the same
way and its done together. You eat breakfast together and its an important meal of the day in germany. Sometimes in america people skip breakfast alltogether.
To finish up, last night I went to my sisters bar, drank a few beers and observed the scene. Once again hipsterish, lots of young people a few middle aged guys. Its an all electronic music bar with a ping pong table in back. Kind of a confusing dynamic but it works. Drunk people playing ping pong is pretty entertaning. Left about 2 and got late night pizza at little pizza restaurant. There was a reggae looking guy in there. High as a Georgia Pine. The pizza guy was making jokes with him like "Sure you don't want some more dry oregano on your pizza?". I laughed. lol. Came back to the house and slept on the couch with the window open. Cold air felt good and somehow the city noises were soothing. Today I saw the city a little bit. Checkpoint Charlie and the Eastside Gallery were the high points. It was scheisskalt(shit cold literally) today. The weather and gray look of the city can kinda get you down sometimes. One of
the unique parts of the city though. Its often wet, cold, and gray in winter. Going to explore a little more tomorrow on my own. Probably hit the occupied houses. Took some pics which I'm putting underneath.
Until next time, Guten Abend meine Damen und Herren.
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