17 Faces of Berlin

Berlin has many faces.

Same as every one of us plays all these social roles. You know, mother, father, daughter, son, lover, teacher, students and so on. Exactly the same can be said about Berlin, only mostly in adjectives.

1) It can be funky.

2) It can be ugly.

Think some nooks of Mitte. Think Karl-Marx-Allee and Frakfurter Allee. I happened to walk almost the entire length of Karl-Marx-Allee on one of my first days in Berlin and this horrible experience will haunt me forever in my nightmares.

3) It can be glamorous (but pretty much only for the Berlinale).

* Note: Picture 2 is a shot of Kino International, one of the venues for Berlinale.

4) It is cultural and full of history, for the lack of a better word. And has enough museums for almost every day in a year.

5) It can be village-like. Pictured is not a suburb, but a neighborhood in Neukölln.

6) Charming and creative.

7) Sometimes Berlin even sells out.

8) But then it goes back to being its lovely corny self.

9) Parts of it are boheme-oriented.

10) Other parts are home-like and all around süß.

11) Sometimes it’s kind of weird. (Enlarge the image to see the amount of satellite dishes.)

12) Berlin has quite some churches, but one wonders if anybody ever stops by as they give the impression of always deserted.

13) It’s very vivid.

14) It can definitely surprise you. (The pictured dump is actually an entrance to a very cool club that hosts great parties and has good acoustics and a large two-storey dancefloor.)

15) It’s also a classical touristic destination, not without some architectural beauty of course.

16) It is certainly… original. Pictured is a church, see the cross on top?

17) It’s beautiful and indigenous and sometimes pretentious and a bit like New York City some 20 years ago, but it’s also kind of… one of a kind.