Yesterday, May19th, the group took a bike tour of the city. I strongly recommend the Fat Tire bike tours to anyone traveling to Berlin. You get four hours on a user-friendly bike. You get interesting historical facts and stories. You get to label the official rear-cyclist as "the ass man."
Did I mention these cute squeaky things? In case the parade of matching bicycles wasn't enough to tip off the locals.
In all seriousness, Berlin is a beautiful place to bike, and there is a healthy bike culture to show for this. Many streets have wide sidewalks or bike lanes. There seems to be a relatively large percentage of cyclists, and many car driving citizens own a bike as well. In general, cyclists and drivers seem to share a rare mutual respect loosely based on two commandments: Thou cyclists shalt not cross the road on red; Thou drivers shalt not hurl the F-bomb (or the German equivalent) at cyclists in roads that have no bike lanes. Here are some pictures from the tour...
Awesome lecture about east-west split of Germany and division of Berlin post WW2.
This is the East Side Gallery. These murals were painted originally in 1990 and repainted (mostly by different artists) in 2009. Controversial feelings arose over this repainting. The government tried to hire the original artists, but many refused for monetary and moral reasons. Muralists were offered only 1,000 euros each, and many felt the slightly faded yet original paintings better preserved that ephemeral moment in history.
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