Berlin

Berlin:  So great!!!

We've been in Berlin for over two weeks and are just getting our act together on getting our first impression of this city down. Paul already has 400 pictures from which to select.  So, starting from the beginning:

We arrived Berlin from Salzburg by air September 25th, and taxied to our home exchange in the Mitte area in East Berlin.

Our Building

We are about 1.5 miles north of Alexander Platz and one block south from the Wall on Bernauer Strasse, where there is now an open air Memorial to East Germans who died attempting to escape.

The entrance to our building

didn't prepare us for the large modern tasteful flat made up of  two combined apartments with refinished wooden floors, modern furniture and kitchen, two nice baths, too many rooms.  We loved it  immediately and felt right at home, although we do get lost going down the long hallway opening doors looking for the big room for hanging up clothes or the office with computer and Paul’s push-up bars, or the kid’s playroom now our suitcase room, or the bathroom containing our toothbrushes.   It turns out that after the wall came down in ’89,  the government gave big subsidies to improve housing in East Berlin, but with rent control strings attached.

Typical renovated buildings in our neighborhood

  So in our building the owner joined and upgraded the units on each floor to create huge flats.  Our hosts said they pay reasonably low rent , but could never afford to buy this unit.  We read that 85% of Berliners rent for this reason and it is one of the big reasons there was no housing bubble or crash here after 2008.

Our neighborhood is wonderful, sort of a combination of Brooklyn and arrondissements of Paris greater than seven without the lovely balconies, and all the coffee bars in every Italian town.

 Each turn takes us into a neighborhood of a slightly different character, with many ethnic restaurants, sidewalk cafes

 and galleries. All the young moms

and dads with kids in tow remind us of the Marina district after the earthquake..  There are fewer dogs but many art galleries, boutiques,

green strips and parks

and many bicycle lanes.  People are friendly and, it seems like the young people are having a great time.  Most of the service people speak English and some seem delighted to help us select just what we want from the German menu.  One menu problem was the German word “quark,” which is translated on the English menus to be “quark.”    We checked Google to find out it is a type of fresh cheese we have yet to taste.

The first week we had perfect autumn weather, crisp and sunny, about 65 degrees F.  We fell in love with the city somewhere along the way and it seems to be sustaining us through these past 4 days of rain, clouds and wind.

More to come on beautiful Berlin