Goodbye my friend

The other day I sold my bike. Sigh. It wasn't the best and the brakes weren't good and I had to cash out several times to fix it, yet it somehow <cheesy line coming> found its way into my heart.

One more week to go now.

The Land of Hipsters and Second Hands

To produce a rough percentage of hipsters currently living in Berlin would be a bit too complicated, with all the posers, true hipsters and hipsters pretending to have quit the hipster world.

As many cultural things there is to do in Berlin, as much superficiality and "party monsters" there is.

In related news, I have established I am not a fan of flea markets. When I show up there, I just walk past all the stalls with junk meanwhile running into people and make a quick exit. Maybe I need to befriend someone who has a knack for digging out pearls from heaps of crap and I’ll get a taste of it from them.

However, yesterday I finally had luck with second hand shopping – and with Humana of all places! I will be going back for more. I was in Colours on Bergmannstraße twice already and both times remained massively unimpressed.  Humana, however, has a lot of clearly frumpy stuff, but some things are actually quite good. Among them jeans from Levi’s, Mustang and so on for 10-16EUR a piece, in excellent condition, too.

I have only recently realized there is life north of Frankfurter Allee (Northern Friedrichshain) and I quite enjoy it. Very DIY there from what I can tell, in a good way. Lots of punks, too. Lots of community-type of stuff. Not a place where I'd like to be based, but it makes for a good visit.

I quite enjoy the Maybachufer market every Tuesday and Friday. It’s more about food there than anything else and I quite enjoy shopping for fruit and vegetables. And always end up buying more than is comfortable to cycle with, of course. Another area I’ve grown very fond of is Treptower Park and Puschkinallee, a very beautiful tree-lined alley. I was there once in the winter and I thought it could easily win an award for the ugliest place ever (it was slippery, snowy and no leafage of course), but now consider me a fan.

One more thing I have to direct my attention at is second hand book stores. I’ve been to a couple smaller ones, but now I’m willing to try a couple stores around Neukölln and Kreuzberg, I’m not sure about the prices yet, but in other places I’ve seen books for as little as 1-3EUR. I realized I didn't read much (except for anything on the computer) at all throughout the last two months, so now I am on a book rampage.

Also, I still have Wedding to discover.