My passport got broken in June. I had two options to get a new one before flying back to Finland: either travel to Hamburg or travel to Berlin. I chose Berlin. Besides visiting Germany’s Finnish embassy, I spent three days in Berlin enjoying the exam free time, wonderful sights and districts, and just relaxing. Well, I could relax only mentally, my legs didn’t get any rest, since I spent the days mostly walking around Berlin. After the trip, I was happy about my city decision, I realized that I had fallen in love with Berlin, and I could see the pros and cons of traveling alone. Somehow, I could also forget the confused feelings about going back to Finland in two weeks, which was great. I was also 100% sure that I want to return to live in Germany at some day, and gladly to Berlin.
While traveling alone, which, by the way, I did now properly for the first time ever, I could see only the places I really wanted and didn’t have to spend time in arranging stuff and meetings with other people. Even though I’m a social monkey, I enjoyed being alone this time. I guess I could also see a bit more by that way. Every day already at around 4 pm I felt that I’ve been walking, seeing and wondering various things so much that a break would do good. So, I also spent some time in parks, relaxing, reading a book and drinking coffee. At some points, I still would have wanted to laugh loud and gossip with some other people…
One of the best things of my trip was that I’d been in Berlin before and, thus, didn’t have many “must see and do” things. So, I could decide what to see only by looking at the map and by finding flyers and brochures about interesting things. A good finding was a lifestyle- and shopping guide, 360° Berlin. It told about many “alternative” and cool places, streets, shops and restaurants. That’s why I spend quite a lot of time in Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg, of which Prenzlauer Berg was especially really lively and full of cute restaurants, cafes and design shops, which actually weren’t really expensive. But with more money, it would have been even nicer… I also found the cutest textile shop ever. I could have bought every textile there.
I was pretty lazy in taking photos with my partly broken camera, especially from the most interesting things, but here are anyway some:
Yorckstraße in Kreuzberg. In addition to these rather unsightly views, Kreuzberd had also nice sights and views, like Viktoriapark (next picture), which I liked a lot.
The first day, I’d already walked a lot, when I still decided to walk to my hostel, which was near Ostbahnhof, from Hackscher Markt. When I finally got to the hostel, I was totally finito, kaputt. On the way, I was amazed by the huge and ugly buildings. To my surprise, the following day, I came across to a brochure which explained that exactly those buildings on Karl Marx Allee are a great example of the building style that was used in Eastern Berlin from 1949 to 1960.
The building style near my hostel wasn’t very flattering either.
The nordic embassies. The Finnish officer was really nice and helpful :)
Kulturbrauerei in Prenzlauer Berg.
Yeah, I had to see the Berlin wall still once again. This time in Bernauer Straße.
The queue to Rheistag. I guess it’s almost always at least this long.
