Berlin photos

Due to the joys of wireless, I am able to post some pictures that I've taken over the past few days. (Basically, I turned on my computer to listen to the new Franz Ferdinand CD, and lo and behold, my computer picked up a wireless signal.) So here on the left is a picture from when Alex and I stopped by Checkpoint Charlie, which was where you could cross into the American sector of Berlin into the Russian sector. I have more pictures by it, but I thought this one is just one of those things that you always see in history books. It was pretty surreal seeing it in real life, but at the same time, it was a total tourist trap and there were a ton of people just everywhere buying postcards, replica hats, etc. There is also a very different feel between the two sides. You could definitely see the buildings on the eastern side were newer because the old ones were knocked down. Even today you could feel the difference although it is now one city.

Here on the left you can see a picture that I took of part of the East Side Gallery, which is a lot of street art on part of the Berlin Wall that was left. I think I took 50-some odd pictures over at the East Side Gallery, but you can check them out on my Flickr Account. I didn't load all of them yet, and I also am lazy, so I didn't rotate some of the pictures that should be rotated. You get the general idea, though.

Then below is a picture of a bridge that Alex and I walked across to get to the East Side Gallery from the western side of the river. (Not sure which river it was...sorry.) It's a bridge you cross from Kreuzberg to Friedrichshain, which are two neighborhoods that are the equivalent of the Lower East Side and the Village. The detail that some of the buildings and infrastructure here have is truly amazing and it is very unique. It makes me wonder why we couldn't have stuff like that at home, but I suppose that's what characterizes Germany and the U.S. as the U.S. I have more pictures from the bridge, too, and I think they are also on my Flickr account. The last picture is also of Checkpoint Charlie. I apologize that there really isn't any sort of order to the pictures that I am posting on my blog, but oh well, you will just have to deal.

Oh...and if you're actually reading my blog...post a comment...I feel as if nobody reads it. I'll admit my thoughts are a scatterbrained, especially in comparison to Alex's (God, she takes forever to write her entries)...but...just post so that I know whether or not I should even continue to update this thing! Even if you just say something ridiculous...