ich bin ein berliner

I’ve just spent the last week travelling outside of France for educational purposes and for a general “vacation” from France for holidays from classes. A few other students and I chose to travel to Bruges and Berlin for our free days. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from either of these cities, but in hindsight, I’m really glad that I went to both.

What struck me most about the two cities was how different they were from each other in atmosphere. Bruges was adorable, immediately inviting, lively, and had a very medieval, old-timey feeling to it. Berlin on the other hand, was seemingly desolate for being the second largest city in Europe and had very little that would have made it immediately recognizable as a European city itself. However, Berlin quickly grew on me. The history from the Cold War was visually everywhere. Most of the buildings looked as if they had been built in the last 50 or so years and, of course, there’s still the wall. Besides the wall, I could not find any distinguishable differences between former East/West Berlin. Although, I wasn’t really sure of what I should have been looking for. The development of both sides seemed to be on par with each other. Anyways, it really fascinated me to be so close to such recent history. This is the farthest east that I’ve been in Europe and I certainly felt it to be one of the most different (from my point of view) places I’ve been.

Funny story- there was an “Occupy Berlin” protest the Saturday we were there (in solidarity with Occupy Wall St. I assume). There is probably a slightly more appropriate name for a protest in Berlin than one that involves occupation.

-Maria