Berlin

Mark from Milwaukee here. Finally getting around to posting some pictures from a trip to Berlin and Copenhagen a couple of months ago. I'll do Berlin first and Copenhagen soon. My super killer brother-in-law and soon to be sister-in-law live in Copenhagen so after 6 days there we got $60 dollar round trip flights to Berlin for a long weekend.

First thing I saw off the train from the airport was this -


Shortly thereafter I saw -


I was pretty stoked at that point figuring a weekend of new experiences lay ahead. I was very grateful to have a very good friend of mine from Rostock make the 2 hour drive to Berlin to stay with us for the weekend in an apartment my brother-in-law and wife and I had rented. STEPHAN (with the beard) is one of the sickest drummers I have seen. He plays in the grind band WOJCZECH - http://www.myspace.com/wojczech13 and is also one of my dear friends. It was good to see him in his country finally as he's been here to visit a couple of times.


We made a point to eat as wide a spectrum of food as we could as many of our vegan friends had mentioned great spots, but we all like country AND western so we found some real traditional German food too.
Here was HANS WURST - a pay what you think it's worth all made on the spot vegan cafe run by punks -


And here was a spot for the exact opposite - can't remember what it was called, and even though it was amazing, it's probably for the best -



We spent the majority of our time in former East Berlin, and it still felt as though it was catching up to the rest of Europe. There was graffiti and street art everywhere, crumbling neighborhoods and businesses almost fully squatted by punks and artists, and evidence of the old regimes "practical" and "productive" style of life -






We also got to hook up with our friends Andy and Hazy in one of the aforementioned squatted businesses - in this case a great punk bar -


One of the highlights though among many, and one that I'm sure you readers out there will appreciate most, was our visit to KEIRIN BERLIN - http://www.keirinberlin.de/ I'll let the pictures speak for themselves -




One of Koichi's bikes -


My lovely wife yelling "Holy shit this rules" -


And the mural outside -


All in all a droolfest of a shop. Gary, one of the owners, was a super cool guy and I'm sure full of immeasurable knowledge.

If all of that isn't worth a visit to you, then this surely is -


I would move to Berlin in a second. Next time I'm there will be in summer with a bike for sure.