Yesterday I tried to go to a sticker museum. That probably seems like a strange museum to visit of all the ones in Berlin, but it's supposedly one of a kind and focuses on the urban sticker culture which I've become increasingly interested in along with other street art. It was unfortunately closed on Sunday (plus I couldn't find the place with my rough directions), so I'll try again in a few days. There was a lot of other art in the area, and I'm going to have to start doing some street art posts through the week or else I'll just have too much to go through at the end!
I was checking out some of the city parks when I got caught in a horrible downpour. The only shelter nearby was a huge sculpture/monument that included a big bowl, and under the bowl were some niches that were large enough for me to shelter under. Normally I don't mind getting a bit wet, but the temperature had dropped a lot and it was raining very hard, and I didn't look forward to spending the entire afternoon cold and wet. I was probably hiding out here for almost 2 hours, but having some time to do nothing but think is a nice break at times.
In the evening I went out for dinner with a couple guys from Buffalo. It was the first day of the first trip they've ever had outside of North America. One of them, who had taken a couple years of German in school asked if I'd need help ordering. I guess I prefer that to the blind expectation that everybody will speak English, but I've been travelling for over 4 months now, and have never had trouble getting food - especially in a major city at a restaurant that gives us English menus. It was a fun time wandering around with them though, mostly looking for a convenience store open late on a Sunday night to buy beer. When I went to bed I was pleased to find I had the room to myself for the night, which meant I could open the windows and let the cold air in and actually be comfortable for once. In travelling I've found that I seem to prefer temperatures a lot cooler than almost everybody else when I sleep, and with all the heat recently I've had a lot of trouble sleeping some places.
Today was much the same. I was mostly exploring the east side of the city some more since it's an area I've really enjoyed. It's full of street art, but also just has a nice atmosphere of small independent restaurants and shops, away from all the franchises and tourist shops.
The most notable event of my day was probably that I had my first attempted mugging. As muggings go it was very amateurish, which was lucky since I've been spending a lot of time in less reputable parts of the city where things might have been much worse. As it was, the guy approached me on a side street about 15m from a major square at like 2pm. As soon as I realized he might be trouble I started walking towards the square as I talked to him, and by the time he started making demands and threats we were out in the open with people all around. He didn't have any sort of weapon, and at this point I felt there really wasn't much he could do. He threatened "to box" (his English was very poor) me, and then threatened to call his friends, but ultimately there was nothing he could do and I just walked away - although it did keep me looking over my shoulder a bit for the next couple hours.
Anyway, I'm too tired to break things down picture by picture, but here's some sights from Berlin!
That last one is an especially cool space. It's this area of warehouses and industrial buildings that has been convered into an urban hangout of bars, restaurants and
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