Ich Bin Ein Berliner! - JFK

Berlin is historically the most important city in the last century. I took a free tour 2 days ago with Sandeman’s Tour Company (http://www.neweuropetours.eu/), which I highly HIGHLY recommend. All the questions I had about World War 1 and 2, as well as the Cold War, were pretty much answered, and Berlin was the center point in all of the historic events. I saw the actual places that were significant in all the decisions and events that led to those intriguing events. Even if one is clueless about these events, they will get a great summary, and still be blown away with all the stuff that happened in this city that changed the world.

What really stands out about Berlin is how the Cold War truly affected it visually. I saw the difference between East Berlin (former-communist section) and West Berlin (the democratic section). East Berlin architecture is very sterile, grey, boring, but VERY bold and solid – you get a feel for the Soviet ego and might in the infrastructure. West Berlin in contrast is vibrant. Keep in mind, a lot of the structures have been rebuilt and/or updated in the last 20-30 years because WW2 pretty much destroyed all the major cities. Major rebuilding didn’t start until German Unification, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I felt the tension of the Cold War, not in the people or structure, but just in the architecture.

I remember when the Berlin Wall being taken down. I was living in Saudi Arabia then, and only 9. The coverage had taken over TV at that time, and I was an annoyed kid because it was interfering with my cartoons. What blows my mind about the collapse, its only 20 years ago. Most of the middle-aged people living in Germany right now lived through it. Then you see people walking about who are in there 70s-80s, that lived through Nazi Germany. It’s crazy to think that some of them were Nazi sympathizers, or showed fake Nazi support to stay alive.

The best and worst thing visually about Berlin is the graffiti. All who know me really well, I love graffiti. So obviously I took Sandeman’s Alternative Berlin Tour (paid tour, 12 Euros). I love anything street/anti/counter-culture. I have many coffee table books on graffiti, street art, skateboard art, breakdancing, etc. If you think graffiti is vandalism, you can eat my ass. I will admit tagging (where it’s just an effortless signature scribble) is worthless and primitive, just to mark a territory. But graffiti and street art real detail and effort, and its layer upon layer of genius design. It leaves you saying, “how did they do that without getting caught?”. I would go as far as saying that Berlin graffiti culture might rival NYC, the supposed birthplace of modern graffiti. There is SO much graffiti here, following are some samples, and unfortunately there is a lot of tagging as well. Keep an eye out for an artist names XoooX; he is from Berlin and is following the very-famous Banksy’s stencil graffiti method. Also, an artist named Cuttout, he finds great graffiti in Berlin and paints perforated lines around them with a tiny scissors, like a coupon, pretty much giving importance to the main art because “you must have it!” and also daring people pretty much cut it out of the wall…. which did happen to one of Banksy’s small one in Berlin. Keep in mind, no one knows Banksy’s identity, even having a best-selling book. One of his works sold for 280,000 British Pounds last year.

As for the night life, I tried the Alternative Pub Crawl, which was supposed to include quirky bars/pubs/clubs, like a ping pong bar, a hippie-themed bar, a toilet bar, etc. The only one that was worth a damn was the indie bar called King Kong Club… great music. Great music. Other than that, I have not partaken in the night life. I regretfully missed an opportunity to check out the Berlin dance/club scene. I increasingly love electronic music, and it’s something I should have checked out.

*** Fake bonus points for someone who can tell me what's wrong about my blog title. ***