Beautiful and Complicated Berlin

I’m reading a book right now that’s set in Berlin in 1933, and so my 2009 trip to Berlin has been on my mind.

I loved Berlin–it’s clean, it’s cheap, the public transportation is efficient and easy to understand, the food is great and the locals are really friendly and helpful. It’s hard to rectify the images of Berlin as it is today with the horrors of its past, but in a way, that’s what makes Berlin such a fascinating city. When I was there, I stayed in a hostel in what was formerly East Berlin, and the fact that wouldn’t even have been possible twenty years before was pretty amazing to me. The reunification of Berlin within my lifetime also gives me hope for the future of the Korea’s. Who knows, maybe in another 20 years I can come back to Korea, and safely stay in Pyongyang…