Berlin trip - Final post

One of the things I first noticed in Berlin was all of the graffiti. I know most people see graffiti as a nuisance, but I actually like it. There are some talented graffiti artists out there. The first night at the hostel I met Elsie, she was from Oslo, Norway, and it was her last night staying there. We found out that we both liked photography and urban decay so we went on a photowalk. Here's some of my favorite graffiti that I photographed:



This one cracks me up. The normal just blah writing isn't all that great - I think if you're going to do some graffiti go all out. But I like the wolf figure... I think he's pretty cool

This one is a top favorite of mine.

I forgot to mention an interesting fact from my tour in my previous post. There were so many secret police officers and informants in East Germany that it's calculated that there was 1 for every 7 citizens. There was one in every apartment building and at least 1 in every work place and church meetings, etc. 1 for every 7 people!

Now onto some more photos of Berlin:

Here's some of the artwork from the Eastside Gallery. It's an open-air art gallery on a section of the Berlin Wall



I visited the Lomography store, got some cool posters & stickers (for free! yay free!), and bought myself a cute little camera.


My Sachsenhausen tour guide had mentioned "Ghost stations" and I was intrigued. When Germany was split into West and East the train lines that started in West and ended in the East were split into two as well. But there was a line that started in the West and ended in the West unfortunately there were three or five stops that were in the East. It didn't make sense to split that line, so the train was still allowed to run but it had to go very slow through that part and couldn't stop. The stations were sealed and they had 3 border guards constantly patrolling the stations. When the country was reunited the stations were reopened and were basically like time capsules because they hadn't changed from the 30's.

Here's a funny story about the Oranienburger station, well I thought it was funny. To help me remember the stations as I traveled I gave them nicknames. This one was obviously THE ORANGE station and this is the station I would change trains to take me to my hostel. This becomes a problem when you're chatting with a very nice old man who asks you where you're heading. I gave him my final station, which isn't on the line that we were on, and he's now worried. He wants to make sure I'm not going to be lost and asks me how I'm getting there and if anyone helped me figure out the directions. I'm trying to tell him that I'm going to THE ORANGE station to transfer, but that's not what it's really called so he doesn't know what I'm talking about. The map I have has the legend covering up THE ORANGE station and a few others, and THE ORANGE station is coming up next. He doesn't want me to get off and get lost but I'm trying to explain that my transfer is at this station. He still didn't want me to get off while he's trying to find a map, but the doors are closing. He was so nice, but sadly I just had to get up and say "danke, I need to transfer here" as I smiled, waved and exited the train. He was such a cute old man trying to help me and I felt bad leaving him.

Hey look it's Twilight!