The last neighborhood I explored was actually outside of Berlin in Oranienburg, Germany (May said this was okay at breakfast) after we visited the concentration camp, Sachenhausen. From the concentration camp we walked through the neighborhood to find somewhere to eat. On the walk there I noticed that the houses were very close together and had very small yards like in the ones we saw in Feldheim on the sustainable village tour. These 2 places where we were more out in the country are the only places where I have seen houses with yards instead of apartment buildings. They all had beautiful landscaping and with small trinkets within their yard such as windmills, gnomes, water fountains, and rock landscapes. I saw multiple houses that had these beautiful purple bushes (pictured below) that reminded me of my grandma because that was her favorite color, so naturally I had to take a picture to remember these, and I have also only seen these in the countryside. When walking we saw these 2 guys from different yards talking to each other over the fence and it reminded me of the show Home Improvement. It was nice to see neighbors taking time out of their day to talk to each other because I feel like in Berlin there is so much hustle and bustle that people typically do not tend to do this. I certainly got more a small-town vibe and it was refreshing to be in the peace and quiet. I felt more relaxed here and like people were not always in a hurry to get somewhere and were racing towards me on the street. I actually saw very few people walking around while we were sitting (compared to in Berlin) at the restaurant and we didn’t pass many people on the street either. We did see 1 big group that seemed to be walking from the concentration camp, it was a school group. I could not figure out what language they were speaking but they looked very similar to how our group would dress and act.
The restaurant we went was an Italian Place called Donna Rosa on Bernauer Straβe. It was about a 10-15 minute walk from the concentration camp to this restaurant and the area was beautiful. The architecture of the buildings was similar to Berlin’s in the way that it was a lot of multiple story buildings all connected together. I would say though that in this neighborhood the architecture was more simplistic on the buildings, there was a lot that were one color, usually a light yellow or other light color, that stretched further than 1 building like you see here in Berlin. Usually the whole connection of buildings was the same color which I feel like is rare here in Berlin and every few feet the building has its own color and new design. There was some different architecture along the buildings but the color usually stayed the same for longer.
There was a definite language barrier at the restaurant because our waiter spoke mostly Italian. He said something that my Spanish helped me figure out what he meant which was “de la casa”. When we had asked for olives as an appetizer, he was trying to tell us that those were on the house or a house specialty, we weren’t exactly sure. He was very nice though and would try to make jokes and be funny as frequently as he could and that we could understand. Everyone that we interacted with here was very nice and friendly.
