finding berlin

Memor­ies of parties are always a bit of a blur. But I do tend to get a bit cheesy remem­ber­ing all those moments full of love. Like when you’re super exhausted after dan­cing and laugh­ing all night, but you still don’t want to go home because THIS song, I love this song, and I need to stay. After a couple of years of

As if the Kit­chen­surf­ing concept wasn’t excit­ing enough, the makers of the culin­ary net­work­ing web­site have thought about a new idea on how to con­nect food­ies with their local cre­at­ive chefs. The Kiez Eats is a weekly pro­gram hos­ted by dif­fer­ent cooks that invites inter­ested people into a night of superb food. With a bit of a workshop-feeling going on

This week is all in the motto of the ITB, the inter­na­tional travel trade show of Ber­lin. Ben, who helped me out with a study for uni­ver­sity, has been much into the sub­ject of trav­el­ling him­self. He cre­ated the Big Blog Map that dis­plays blogs from all over the world. He’s been liv­ing in Ber­lin quite

Dur­ing the winter time of the year, Tier­garten resembles a mys­ter­i­ous, enchanted forest. It’s vast and so empty. With the occa­sional run­ner passing our way, we were basic­ally alone when strolling through the snow-covered grounds. I remem­ber how packed and crowded the park is in the sum­mer­time. I don’t like it then, people leave their shit every­where

Haus der Kulturen der Welt. This name is not just weirdly uncomfortable to foreigners, but to German speakers too. Haus der Kulturen der Welt. You'd think that Germans, who like to put words together, would call it "Weltkulturenhaus". It's remote area is pretty exceptional, too. To me, it seems just SO out of the way of anything that you'd have to be really dedicated to go to an event or exhibition. I know I used to pass it on one of my many trips with the designated tourist bus line "100", and keep thinking: man, what the hell, why would they place such a gorgeous object right into the middle of nowhere (and yes, Tiergarten is right in the middle of nowhere to me, because IF IT'S NOT IN KREUZBERG THEN HOW CAN IT EXIST?!). All joking aside, this is an exceptionally important place in Berlin. The Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of the Cultures of the World - seriously, can we just call it Bert or something from now on? It just feels so cold and impersonal) is an institution full of cultural insights, from concerts to exhibitions to readings to films to conferences and whatever else can be visually exhibited in the "world cultures" context. Remember how everybody went crazy about the Transmediale partys a couple of days ago? Well, if you were so inclined to actually participate rather than just get wasted, you'd have known that the Haus der Kulturen der Welt plays a central role in enabling the exchange of cultural practices, even in music and popculture. Besides, it's one of the last institutions that is still completely funded and commissioned by the state, a growing rarity in Berlin.

What if Ber­lin was like New York? What if all we did was breed high rising monu­ments, cov­er­ing the sky with amaz­ing archi­tec­ture, giv­ing Ber­lin the look and feel of a met­ro­polis? A con­ven­tional met­ro­polis, that is. Most people tend to appre­ci­ate that Ber­lin is not like New York, and yet it seems like an inter­est­ing exper­i­ment: what

Merry Christ­mas to all of our read­ers! Most of us will be gone for a short while, but stay updated — I’m sure those who’re stay­ing will keep you covered with news and pic­tures. In the mean­time, here’s a simple col­lec­tion of Black and White Ber­lin pho­tos without any con­text whatsoever. Oh and: if you’re sub­let­ting your room/flat while

Ber­lin can be a big load of dis­trac­tions. Even if you’re just try­ing to have fun, there’s always some­thing else that wants to catch your atten­tion. A phone call, an Ins­tagram pic­ture, a new love interest, my favor­ite band is play­ing live, that exhib­i­tion I can’t miss, a spon­tan­eous rave in an over­frozen U-Bahn station. But it’s not the size

The New York Times have recently pub­lished an art­icle about Ber­lin describ­ing the exper­i­ences of a tem­por­ary expat in the city. As always, whenever Ber­lin gains inter­na­tional atten­tion, Ber­liners feel some­what flattered. It’s nice that New York­ers might think our city is inter­est­ing enough to pub­lish words on it. But the art­icle in ques­tion does not

I think Marcus still hasn't been to the Kreuzberg. Not the district, but the actual hill. He's been living in Berlin for a hundred and two years and we once promised to take him there. Judging by Stefans pictures, it seems like the weather conditions are perfect for a serene view from above. The park is a 12,8 hectar area on the Kreuzberg. The Kreuzberg - translation "cross mountain" - is the highest natural peak of Berlins city center. Yes, the highest. Which means Berlin is as flat as an iron board. The Kreuzberg - the actual Kreuzberg hill - is the pimple in Berlins face. But it's a really nice pimple. The green park and slopes which you can picknick on are very inviting to spend a whole afternoon on top of the city.

I’ll be hon­est: there is lit­er­ally noth­ing attract­ive about Pots­damer Platz and I’ll rarely ever pass by. It’s bor­ing and dis­con­cert­ing, pretty much the typ­ical go-to tour­ist hot spot with a mix of fancy res­taur­ants and posh office build­ings. You can expect some stuff to see, but a col­or­less lack of human inter­ac­tion. The only time you’ll

Neon lights shine brine by night. Where Karl Marx Straße lacks in charm and aes­thet­ics by day­light, this street knows how to be flashy as soon as the sun goes down and the neon shop– and head­lights go on. The patch between Rathaus Neuk­ölln and Karl-Marx-Str. U-Bahn sta­tion seems espe­cially mag­netic to pecu­liar situ­ations. The shops,