The bike tour.

From 11am to 5:30pm today, my study abroad group and I were tooling around Berlin on bikes, with varying degrees of skill and coordination. The weather was absolutely perfect. We saw a section of the Berlin Wall, crossed the river, and biked through some parks in West Berlin. I was fascinated by Tempelhof Park, converted from an old airport runway. The airport was taken over by the Americans during the war, closed down completely as an airport recently, and through a series of community protests was eventually turned over by the government to become a common space. There was a huge open area set up for people grilling: the "grillplatz," a community garden, and people biking, running, and skateboarding all around the old runway. The park is now the largest in Berlin, and it was full of people enjoying the lovely Saturday afternoon. It's still a little weird to me that when I'm having a lovely Saturday afternoon, almost every other person I know in this world is having a Saturday morning.

Buttons and wire in the garden

Another interesting detail found in the garden

 

The cute busker in Alexanderplatz

 

Sitting on top of the Berlin Wall