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In the borough of Spandau we had originally traveled there to go the beach, but upon arrival from the subway there was no sign of water anywhere around us. There was a courthouse on one side of the station and a park on the other. A large building that said arcade was behind it. Eventually we got on a bus and ended up in what looked like the suburbs. There were trees and greenery everywhere. Large white houses sat behind fences and hedges. Most of the inhabitants were either elderly or parents with children. We also saw some very large buildings that indicated a house in every way, except for their immense size. Trusting a map on someone’s phone, we trudged into the forest on a dirt path. Passing more beautiful houses and a large Jewish cemetery, it seemed to take forever to get to water because we were walking in the forest for so long. Finally, when we reached the water it was lined with tall grasses and trees. An old skinny dock stretched out into the lake, and next to it was a German restaurant on a boat. We ate outside on the dock next to the boat, while the wind tried to blow away our napkins. I ate pork, green beans, and potatoes. A swan and her six babies swam by and we watched her chicks get tossed by the windswept waves while they struggled to stay close to their mother. After lunch, half the group decided to turn back while the other half were determined to find a beach because it had taken us hours to get trek there. We walked through more forest, rode another bus, saw more old people, and young mothers with infants. One quirky feature I did not appreciate were the stumps and trees adorned with bottle caps and chunks of wood to mimic the human face. What I hope was meant to be whimsical seemed very creepy. I passed many a stump with bottle caps nailed into it to represent eyes above a knotted nose. One of the trees had two faces, each one looking down either side of the trail. At the water’s edge, there was a small sandy outcrop where owners were playing with their dogs. We sat nearby and tossed a Frisbee back and forth in the wind. It was probably sixty degrees out so the water was freezing. Kayaks, yachts, and sailboats passed by with passengers who stared at us, expressionless, snug in their windbreakers and sweaters. One of the weirdest sights was a kayak that passed us, the first person propelling them forward, while the larger man sat behind in a button down shirt, talking on his cell phone as though he were in an office. The houses we had seen were much nicer compared to the homes in other boroughs. It felt very suburban and the people were much more comfortable staring at us. As far as I could see no one else ever got into the water, but us and the dogs, which were almost always without leashes. Everything was very quiet, even in the lake both the people and their boats were silent. At lunch we were the loudest because we were the only ones who emitted any laughter.

In the borough of Mitte, there are many grand structures and monuments such as those in Gendermanmarkt. We ate lunch at a traditional German establishment, but had to wait a bit because they technically didn’t serve food until after noon. All the buildings looked grand and beautiful with well-dressed people milling about on the steps beneath them. There were many nice restaurants around with outdoor seating and a lot of high end retail stores. We tried to go into a Gucci store out of curiosity, but the shop keepers wouldn’t allow it because as they said, they could only allow three people into the shop at a time, though its large size and our casual clothing made me think otherwise. On another occasion, I went to a boutique before brunch to look around and the clothes were upwards of 800 Euros, which made me afraid to even touch them. On most of my excursions, the weather was hot and sunny. Deeper into the borough, it could be seen that a mass of construction was taking place, I assume to bring the rest of Mitte in line with its newly gentrified buildings and venues. The stone facades riddled with bullet holes were occupied by chic cafes and small shops. I would describe the majority of the people we encountered as young and professional looking. I went to the Tiergarten one day to look at the memorials and was surprised to see how overrun the area was with tourists. Since Mitte is home to many of Berlin’s most iconic sights it attracts a large crowd, which I think detracts from their enjoyment. I was a disappointed when I visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I had been quietly thinking the whole time, which only lent to the discomfort I felt seeing every one of the posted rules being broken. Young people hopped from stela to stela and played tag in between the columns. People lounged on the memorial with no more deference than they would on a park bench. It made me think a lot how these memorials served its visitors better as a tourist attraction than a somber piece of art for reflection. There were a lot of crows in the Tiergarten that were very comfortable being near people, but I was not comfortable with them being near me. I was just wandering around and had walked to the Tiergarten accidentally from Potsdamer Platz, but I kept stumbling upon many grand monuments amongst the trees, which I think speaks to Mitte as a borough overall. Unlike some of the other boroughs I’ve visited, you don’t have to walk very far in Mitte to stumble upon an attraction. In my view I couldn’t see very many homes, mostly just businesses and embassies. I went back to Alexanderplatz because there were so many stores and restaurants, albeit more expensive stores and restaurants. There was an outdoor market, where people were selling food, jewelry, bags, etc. I bought some fried cake balls covered in powdered sugar that were amazing. It was interesting to see everyone closing up around five and it made me think about how hard it would be to repeatedly set everything up and pull it all down at the end of the day, especially for the food stalls.

The borough of Lichtenberg was very different from the boroughs of Mitte and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. Lying deeper in the GDR, I observed a lot of stark East German apartment buildings, and graffiti on the walls along the sidewalks. The buildings were in disrepair, some of which I observed had once had balconies for the apartments. These had since been sloppily removed, obviously not for aesthetic purposes. It was rainy the day I visited, which only added to the overall dismal mood the architecture gave to the landscape. There weren’t many people out except for a few men walking alone or riding bikes. I ate something called ‘Pfide’ at a café, which was something like a pastry with a meatloaf-ish substance in the center and a fried cake ball, dusted with sugar and filled with blackberry jelly. The woman we first spoke to stopped us to grab her coworker, whom she said spoke better English, which we appreciated. There were a lot of older people eating alone and pairs of friends huddled close to each other. The food was very cheap, which was surprising because it was both delicious and filling. It was a little disconcerting walking around because there was no one on the streets and the walkways were surrounded by large, towering apartment blocks. At one point I passed under a bridge, where some homeless people were camped out under a bunch of blankets, sandwiched, between their three dogs. Despite their location and circumstances they seemed perfectly content, while they smoked out of a bong. We walked along the streets for a while looking for sights or a public place to occupy, but the grubby apartments seemed to go on forever, only being broken up by a few cafes. Originally, we intended to go to a pizza place on that street, but once we reached our destination we realized that the restaurant no longer existed and had been replaced with a new establishment, which spoke a mixture of German and Arabic. Many of the lower apartment windows were covered over with steel blinds and I felt very out of place as this obviously was not a touristy area. The apartments were devoid of any ornamentation. Some had been recently painted, I can only surmise in an attempt to add some joy to the gray landscape. On the way back to the subway station we passed through some tight, winding alleys with chunky cobblestones and colorful graffiti lining the path. I saw more homeless people nestled in alcoves along the walls and gruff looking pedestrians trying to ignore the rain that misted them. Their dark, dull clothes blended in with the surrounding buildings. There were a lot more insular cafes that we passed, but were afraid to go in because of how much we would stick out and disturb the environment. Maybe it was the rain that drove people indoors and off the streets or as I suspect the lack of restaurants and shops. What was there, were literally hole-in-the-wall establishments that seemed to exclusively serve a local clientele. The small windows of the buildings only underlined the aloof mood of the borough.