Seasons in Gropiusstadt, Neukölln

jack: 16th Mar 2007 - 14:02 GMT

i spent three years near berlin, it didn't look like that. there were still buildings hollowed out by the allied bombing, new construction was going up and camps still filled with displaced persons. somehow i loved the city, the ancient and historic city of berlin, but it was surrounded by the russians, better was frankfurt and old heidelberg, it was a university town and plenty of girls.

SCAM28: 16th Mar 2007 - 14:28 GMT

Yeah a lot had to be done after the war and actually they've just started to rebuild a lot of the bordering towns around Berlin that used to belong to East Germany in the last ten years. So it basically hasn't been noticable until about 5 or 6 years ago. I'll try to find a good example of this and show you...could take a couple weeks though, because I don't spend much time on the edge of Berlin.

It's too bad I wasn't into taking pictures 4 or 5 years ago, because I remember seeing a road where there were brand new buildings on the one side of the road, with stores and restaurants etc and on the other side there were abandoned buildings and the old run down grey-brown houses of the soviet era...

and btw...nowadays there are plenty of gals in Berlin ;)

jack: 18th Mar 2007 - 01:23 GMT

when i arrived in bramerhaven on christmas eve in 61 there was a body of an east berliner lying on the barbed wire dead from russian bullets. we were immediately put on alert and moved into the mountains near the russian front. that week we were sent back to a more southern part of germany and it was now new years eve and i went to a bar and met a german girl, we talked and danced and then in the snow we kissed on a bench in a park. i had not been with a girl in some time and i found her exciting. we kissed and made out like two lovers who were never going to see each other again and that was about the size of it, we never saw each other again. but i'll always remember that night in the snowy park.

SCAM28: 18th Mar 2007 - 02:40 GMT

wow jack...that's beautiful, in a weird kind of way...
I guess luckily I'm too young to have experienced these times, but I've been lucky enough to have experienced that situation...however it was in California and we basically knew we weren't going to see each other again...I was 16 and was going move back to Germany the next day when I met her...