The City: First Impressions

Where I grew up, if you said "I'm going into the city," you meant Chicago. There were giant shiny buildings or graffitied stone apartment buildings. Cars purred and rumbled in the streets, people muttered and yacked on cell phones, and the loop threw its rattling cacophony on top. There is nothing small or quiet about it outside of the more residential districts.

Berlin is not like that. I took the subway close to the center of Berlin today, and still the majority of buildings had at most seven floors. Hundred year old houses like the one I am staying in butt up against far younger buildings, creating a somewhat quaint patchwork effect. Furthermore, in the admittedly small area I've walked through, the traffic has been rather light. Bicycles are more prevalent, I suspect in part due to Germany's eco-friendly attitude and the higher cost of gas. Until I have seen the streets at five on a Friday night I'll hold my verdict, but the city seems quiet to me. Perhaps that's to be expected in a country known for being reserved.

Along with the patchwork buildings come patchwork crosswalks lights. This is because some of the crosswalk men are from the previous East Germany, as shown on the right, and West Germany, as shown on the left.

 

Seeing the East German style on one street, and the West German style on the next made me wonder just how strange it would have been to wake up one day and suddenly find that there is a whole new half to the city you've been living in, and that everything is just a bit different. It would be like opening a door to Bizarro world. That is what I find fascinating about Berlin. It has existed in roughly the same form through four different governments in the last century alone. It has been destroyed and rebuilt, divided, and reunited, and as the capital, it attracts people from all over the world to boot. It's like Frankenstein's Monster, patched together from bits of cities that no longer exist.