Berlin, Germany (03.03.2014)
Work took me to Germany last week. I managed to squirrel away a couple of hours between meetings one day to explore Berlin. With no time for planned highlights, I simply wandered the streets and let the city scene wash about me.
Berlin struck me as beautiful, in an utterly soulless kind of way.
It’s a strange feeling I had walking the streets, as if the whole city was a facade. It lacks substance. The edgy architecture is cut from metal and glass, the parks filled with blackened skeletons of former trees and strangers who don’t smile. The city has a dark history and a creepy, bustling tourist trade. I found the juxtaposition of haunting memorials to human suffering and gaudy sales pitches of tour touts uncomfortable.
I may not have had the chance to get to know this infamous Cold War city as well as it deserves, but this first encounter left me a little cold.
the wonders 
Oh no, I love Berlin. Well, I loved Berlin 20 years ago. Mind you when I was there Potsdamer Platz was a massive building site. Maybe the city has changed. I think you need a local to show you round, someone with inside knowledge of some of the sub-cultures of Berlin… it has a cool underbelly…
Yeah, I definitely didn’t get the chance to get to know the city properly, just first impressions. Everyone told me I would love Berlin. As I said it is beautiful, a unique kind of beauty.