Guten tag from Prenzlauer Berg! Berlin is like no other city I've ever been to. One minute I'm standing in a quaint neighborhood; I turn a corner and next thing I know I'm in the middle of a huge urban city! After a jet-lagged Day 1, I slept for a solid 12 hours and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to go. Good thing, too because we biked for four hours around the city.
The street art was one of my favorite parts of the tour. These are called "Dancing Girls" by one of the more famous artists. I've never seen so much graffiti in my life. I saw street art ranging from posters to paintings to spray-painted German words I couldn't understand.
I've also encountered so many diverse people in this city. Here is a photo from the Raw Temple showing the oldest mohawk-flaunting man I've ever seen. He rocks it, in my opinion.
We visited the Eastside Gallery, which is a section of the Berlin Wall that borders the Spree River. It had lots of… you guessed, it, graffiti. This includes the famous "Fraternal Kiss" mural.
After the bike tour, a group of us decided to take the tram back to the hotel. As we were walking through Alexanderplatz, a young man dressed in a toga approached us. Once he discovered we were English-speakers, he repeated, “Pleaze, pleaze halp me. I have to sell zees,” gesturing to a box full of who-knows-what tied around his neck. We politely declined, but some of his friends followed him over to us. When we asked them why he was trying to sell trinkets and tiny bottles of vodka, they told us it was his “last day of freedom,” and we realized the friends were forcing the (very drunk) groom to sell things to pay for the bachelor party.
Day 2 taught me that street art is popular and prevalent, that most Germans in Berlin speak English, and that they are very patient with silly American tourists such as myself.
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