Berlin Photos


Berlin is a strange place. There are modern buildings next to run down apartments, trash on the streets, crazy techno clubs, and everything is covered in spray paint. It is the street art capital of the world. After the cold war, there were lots of empty buildings that had been used by the government and then abandoned. Also, unlike other cities, there was no existing gang graffiti scene, so anyone could paint without worrying about getting shot. The city is too far in debt and has bigger problems to deal with, so the paint is rarely cleaned off the buildings. And in some spots the government even allows street art. For example, there is only a single 1.5km section left of the wall and it's been turned into an art gallery. Each section of the wall was given to a different artist and the results are awesome. In the rest of the city, the street art was less impressive.

Certainly, there are some impressive pieces throughout, but most of the others are just ugly graffiti tags. I had always thought that there were two categories of spray painters: artists and taggers, but Berlin has proved me wrong. There is a group of 40 people called "1UP" whose sole purpose is to run around the city painting "1UP" everywhere. You can see their tag in at least one of my photos. Many of the members of this group are artists on their own as well and do real art, not tagging. I really don't understand it. The taggers are getting more creative in their tools. Painting on the bottoms of the buildings is easy and going to the roof and spraying the tops is fairly easy too, but now they've started putting paint into fire extinguishers and spraying the middle portions of the walls, the result of which does not look appealing.

Berlin is in a constant state of change. Buildings are torn down and replaced and old buildings are recycled with new purpose. For example, an old train station has been turned into an art house, a bomb shelter is now a rock climbing center, and another building has been turned into an indoor skate park. Believe it or not, Berlin also has beaches. Sand has been imported to create beach areas and beach bars next to some of the canals.

The Pergamon Museum was one of the most unique and interesting museums I've ever been in. It has, among other things, a Greek sacrificial alter, a Roman market gate, and one of the gates to Babylon. These were all excavated and then transported and reassembled in the museum. It's one thing to put antiquities such as statues or daggers on display, but to have these huge gates and buildings restored provides a much deeper experience.

I met some really cool people during my stay. I ended up renting a bike because the people I was hanging out with had bikes and it was a great way to get around the city. I hadn't done any city biking before since it's not very common in the U.S. and it took me awhile to get used to being in amongst the traffic. There are no bike lanes on many streets in Berlin. By the end though, it made me feel like I was more a part of the city than when I walked.

I rode all over the city and the first day I was there, I was riding with one of my Icelandic friends, Jon (pronounced "Yon"), and we came across a set of beach volleyball courts. We went up to one and asked if we could join them. It turned out that they had paid to rent the court, but after the game, they let us play anyway, although one of their four players stormed off. I was worried he had left because he was mad that we had showed up, but they assured us that he was just in a bad mood and didn't want to play any longer. So, it ended up being me and Jon versus the three Germans and I felt bad because Jon and I won with relative ease.

Berlin is famous for having some crazy nightclubs. We were told by locals, including bar tenders, that Friday and Saturday nights were the tourist nights and that Sunday nights were when the locals went. So we decided to go to the most famous one on Sunday. But, it turned out that it was actually closed on Sunday. We found out later that another big club had an open-air area debut that night and so the club we tried to go to closed due to lack of people. We ended up going to a nearby alternative instead and still had a great time. People in Berlin are definitely wild and I witnessed, among other things, people doing lines of cocaine right out in the open. It rained hard that night and we danced half way home, soaking wet, before we found a taxi.

The best part of traveling is meeting amazing people. The worst part is saying goodbye.