Berlin

 

I beg your pardon? Get on a train, sleep, and wake up in another country?Are

you just trying to trick me because I am Australian? The beauty of Europe is
it's compactness. With friends in Berlin and overnight train tickets at just
40euros, who wouldn’t go to? We caught he train from Gare de l’Est on Saturday
night andarrived in Berlin on Sunday morning.

The two cities are so different they are almost incomparable. Berlin is relaxed,
easy going, laid back… Paris is busy, rushed and crowded. I found myself
wondering why I had decided to learn French all those years ago and not
German. Berlin just seems to suit us a little better. Incredible cafés, more second
hand stores that you could ever hope to explore, fascinating history, free music
free food, cheap beer! There is something to do every single night. So much art,
so much history, so much culture!

I still love Paris, but it was beautiful to experience a city that seems to be on the
verge of something big… having been through such a huge and varied history that
is so evident, Berliners seem to be discovering themselves with effortless
coolness. Paris tries too hard. Berlin just is…

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Beer for two euro. Go Crazy.

There is just so much history on every corner. I almost hyperventilated when we

did a free walking tour of the city and witnessed things like a section of the Berlin

Wall, that was unable to be demolished because it would have damaged the

remaining foundations of the SS headquarters, and destroyed the uncovered Nazi

torture chambers that were right by it...What other city has that many layers of

history, that is so relevant and impacting today? How do people just buy an

apartment next door to where Hitler committed suicide when the Allies were

closing in? How do people reconciling living within a 40 minute train ride of a

notorious concentration camp in which over 20 000 people died? How does a city

that was literally divided for over 20 years reconcile their differences?

As you can probably guess.. Berlin was fascinating to me.

Images from the East Side Gallery, the largest remaining stretch of the Berlin wall
now converted into an art gallery.