Neukolln Neighborhood and other nearby locales...

Unbeknownst to us until we arrived, Neukolln district in Berlin is one of the "hottest" areas for Berlin youth to both reside and gather in droves.  It is also a huge Turkish resettlement area with many Turkish businesses and gathering spots, along with a Turkish/German Cultural Fusion Centre around the corner from were we are living for a month.  Bordered by many canals, it's a beautiful neighbourhood - making it difficult to leave because of the many things to see-do-eat & drink here!  We discovered a nice bar five minutes walk called The Shilling which stocks beer from a local Berlin brewery which is about a 15 minute walk from the apartment - Rollberg!  Initially Danny liked the area as he searched through AirBnB because it was next to a huge park - we soon discovered running along the canal ("user") bike paths to be even more pleasant.

Our "home" canal by daylight, through the bushes and near the Turkish Market 

Home canal - by dusk - perfection via Android camera

Community Garden on Panierstrasse (next block)

Same Community Garden, different view - the garden has  been continuously tended and occupied by people with tiny summer houses for over 100 years. 

Large nearby canal by day, many flocks of swans nearby

Downtown Canal where the sightseeing boats take you - photo by DW - everywhere we turn,
 there are either old (and I mean REALLY old) buildings or brand new construction and cranes. No complaints about adding high-rises here - but there are complaints and protests about building on the closed Tempelhof Airport site - now open space to be enjoyed by all.

Tiny Kreutzberg store - Bialetti Display

Home canal by sunset just before 10 pm - photo by DW

Rollberg Beer at The Shilling - local brewery - best so
far and also available at the nearby brewery - hard to
find but definitely worth the search

Francesca meets Francesca

My neighbour Tina insisted that I try to get together with a former student who resided in her home for a few weeks several years ago - they remained in touch.  Francesca Faulin is Italian but relocated to Berlin just south of Neukolln.  

At a coffee shop on Panierstrasse the hub of Neukolln

We "met" each other through Facebook before our trip - and after I arrived, we discovered that our temporary and her permanent residences were close to each other.  I met her (and gave her a special greeting from Tina) at a coffee shop around the corner during the heat-wave - on her way with her boyfriend to a huge street party/cultural parade in the neighbourhood.  Neither of us remained there long - and she's since left the city and on vacation back in Italy.  Not sure she will be back in time for us to meet again.

Graffiti or Murals - no matter - graffiti is NOT removed...

There is a lot of street art happening in the city of Berlin - some attractive and a lot of it not so nice - very little of it ever seems to be removed once a building is "tagged" - it stays that way or gets worse.  Graffiti abounds on residential and professional buildings in the neighbourhoods and on the main drags.  

Just left this comment on SeeClickFix/Oakland  re: Graffiti:  I am experiencing very interesting phenomena during my long awaited summer travels particularly in the context of the comparison to Oakland. I am in Berlin Germany for a month.  There is a LOT of graffiti everywhere.  It is mostly tolerated with little to no effort made to remove it.  The "artists" vary in talent from actual representational art to scribbles that are totally incomprehensible, messy and smeared.  No matter - it is tolerated on both office and apartment buildings in the neighbourhoods - not in the main tourist areas - but I am not staying there.  The tags are mostly within reach of tall arms or low ladders on walls, doors, doorway frames and window pull down shutters - no one is hanging off freeways obscuring freeway signs and endangering public safety.  There is a LOT of spray paint being sold here.  I have no clue if this is in any way gang related but toleration of the expressions prevails.

Mural on the side of a restaurant

Graffiti on our street Tellstrasse

Guitar player on side of apartment building

Pretty cool dog

These three images are from the same (pink) building - very decorative - including several others on two sides - Some had graffiti over portions of the original paintings - Why?  The city seems very tolerant of street art to the point where graffiti is NOT removed from most places we could see.  Occasionally we came upon a building that had been overpainted but this was rare.  We never saw anyone painting or spray painting - and the spray paint is actually only on areas which can easily be reached from the sidewalk.

Huge door of a Psychotherapy office - Graffiti is everywhere with little effort being made
to remove it.

Back of a drugstore (Apoteke) and apartment building.

Nice scene painted onto the side of this apartment building
Trees and birds on a wire - too sunny to get the whole scene

Added my own graffiti to this parking lot filled with old Opals!

Snuck in this great tattoo of a
Mixmaster that made it onto
someone's arm!  Good for a chef?!

Jewish Memorial in Berlin, Germany

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe^[ also known as the Holocaust Memorial (German: Holocaust-Mahnmal), is a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold. It consists of a 19,000 m² (4.7-acre) site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. 

(Note from Blogger:  Basically, we are talking BIG rectangular stones here, impossible to take photos in colour as you can see.)

According to Eisenman's project text, the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason. A 2005 copy of the Foundation for the Memorial's official English tourist pamphlet, however, states that the design represents a radical approach to the traditional concept of a memorial, partly because Eisenman did not use any symbolism. However, observers have noted the memorial's resemblance to a cemetery.^[2][3][4] An attached underground "Place of Information" (German: Ort der Information) holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims, obtained from the Israeli museum Yad Vashem.

Building began on April 1, 2003 and was finished on December 15, 2004. It was inaugurated on May 10, 2005, sixty years after the end of World War II, and opened to the public two days later. It is located one block south of theBrandenburg Gate, in the Friedrichstadt neighbourhood.  

Jewish Memorial stretches over 4 acres.
This was the tallest and deepest section which is shallow around the edges.
Security guards try to prevent people from climbing on the stones - or eating lunch on
the table-like lower ones.
There were hordes of tourists here - amazing that we got any photos with no people.

Trees at the end of the corridor through the deepest section.
More likely better photos will appear on WholeInTheDonut.

There is a lot of controversy about the memorial and this site.  If so inclined you can read about it by Googling Jewish Memorial or Holocaust Memorial Berlin.

Visit with "the Italians" - Whirlwind tour of the city

Our friends from Brussels aka "the Italians" (where we are visiting them in July) surprised these travellers with a  last minute plan to meet here in Berlin and include us in celebration of  their Silver Wedding Anniversary.  The first day Marco had to work (emergency press conference) even though he had time off.  Loredana said it always happens when they are on vacation - for example, they honeymooned in China and they arrived in Tiananmen Square on the day of the incident in 1989 - arrived and left that is!  Then, we met them and IT RAINED so we walked around in the rain for a few hours before giving up and starting out the next day.  We next met at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum and then strolled around downtown Berlin - the last day, we met at KaDeWe (after we got lost when a miserable bus driver failed to tell us where to disembark), had coffee (and some of us had cheesecake)  took a little tour of the area and split up - me and Loredana window shopping at KaDeWe a GIGANTIC DEPARTMENT STORE (I needed to buy more coffee and she wanted to dream about the shoes there).   DW and M headed off to first a record store (nothing special) and then to Saturn, a large electronics store, where DW splurged on a bluetooth speaker so we could have music in our flat.  

Marco and Loredana at KaDaWe top floor dining establishment

Marco in our pad playing with DW's guitar (photo by DW)

Rose Garden, Hasenheide Park not far from NeuKolln
where we are staying for a month

Near a "fake beach" on a canal, bunch of bars,
and by day an art enclave not far from our digs

Me and DW looking at photo of the cheesecake (below) - Photo by Marco

Couldn't resist the caffe shop on top of KaDaWe

DW at Brandenburg Tor in the rain - usually this
place is so crowded you can hardly see it
much less photograph it

Last but not least the new speaker - does the job!  

Light at the top of the stairs

I mentioned we were on the fifth floor - well it's a lovely staircase, wide with a large glossy handrail. When I see my downstairs neighbour's very healthy spider plants, I know we have just 3 more flights to go (each floor is two flights).   Believe me, it's a pleasure to get to the top - and there is a bench to the right where we can remove our shoes before walking into the door.  And between the two penthouse apartments, there is a lovely square foyer with hooks for jackets and another chair to sit and remove shoes.  If we walk straight through the french doors, we are on our neighbour's part of the deck.  Beautiful space - looks like it is an exclusive investment property designed for AirBnB rentals and guests of the owner, a dentist.  All the space needs is a little more love than it gets on a regular basis - the deck is home to several expensively potted - but quite dried up and dead - plantings.  Only one living plant in the house - a large cactus!  

Spider plants indicate just 3 more flights!

A welcome sight - the glossy painted rail is very substantial!

Berlin apartment - we are here for a whole month!

Well if travellers want to get to know a city and stay for a month, in our case Berlin, Germany, this apartment is close to ideal.  Only one tiny little unannounced detail ----- surprisingly it turned out to be a 5th floor walk up!  This was not mentioned in the advertising so it was initially a shock after overnight travel from the Netherlands then another 6 hours by Hi-speed then 2 local trains!  However, what we found inside the door (after I caught my breath) more than made up for it - what's 78 steps anyway?  I go up and down the Beacon Merritt steps at least twice a day in Oakland and there are 80 of those and they are uneven, even broken in places!  Anyway fast forward back to Berlin, this place is big, airy, modern and more than comfortable.  We even have 3 couches - room to entertain - and we already did with Marco and Loredana flying in from Brussels for a three day visit to meet us and celebrate their silver wedding anniversary!  So we arrived last Monday night (I don't even remember dragging my roller bag up all those stairs) and settled in to Neukolln (District)  pretty quickly. Just southeast of Kreuzberg, this area has several canals running through it and is populated by Middle Easterners (mostly Turkish Muslims) and (surprise) hipsters which makes for a youthful student atmosphere as well as art and music.  So it looks and feels quite familiar to us.  There are tons of great eateries, bars an those all important bakeries of all types - breads, pastries, and on and on.  Prices are very low compared to what we found in the Netherlands and in other Districts as well - another good thing since we are staying a month.  We already bought bus/train passes and may also get museum passes since visiting the many museums will be good rainy day activities.  In the meantime, it has been sunny except for a cold wet day and a half and no rain is predicted at least for the next 4 days. So we're good.  Been spending most of our time exercising, walking, talking (Danny), eating and of course enjoying the German brews.  And like home - also vacuumed the place and did some hand laundry -- the only thing missing is a washing machine.  Our immediate neighbours are also here via AirBnB - and from Los Angeles - small world.  They are doing our trip in reverse, and are here for a month as well. 

Entry toward the center rear of photo, kitchen right

Dining table off the deck

Looking toward the balcony - built in guitar niche

Living room area looking out toward balcony

Large bathroom has a spa tub,  toilet, and
one roof window

Large shower with window toward tub
(and living room (?!)

Rest of the living room area w hammock (DW tried it out)

Large terrace overlooking river birches and a quiet courtyard - this
is just a portion of the terrace - it does have very loud birds in the morning
 (like home) as well as a screamer cat or two at night. 

Wood burning fireplace - no need for this now!  And king size bed.