柏林第一感 (Our Arrival in Berlin)

Chinese graffiti got you confused? See the English below!

7月11日  星期三

今天下午到了柏林，说起柏林之前，一定要记录以下我俩在阿姆斯特丹住处的一个“地下党”的行为  😂😅  我俩的房间是民宿主人家整栋房子的最底层，属于半地下状态。主人每天早上都会给我俩放到筐里一小袋面包（基本都是四个面包，有时候还是热乎的）， 他从来不会打扰我俩，就是快速地偷偷的放进面包筐里，我俩起床后去到那个隐蔽的角落，就会看到面包躺在那里。真的感觉就像地下党一样，他是每天唯一给我俩生命补给的人，哈哈   😂😅

Wednesday, July 11

We arrived in Berlin this afternoon, however, before I talk about Berlin, I think I should mention about the following, “Underground Party” 😂😅 behavior at our residence in Amsterdam. Our room was in a semi-underground floor of the owner’s house. The owner would provide us a small bag of fresh bread every morning (basically four pieces of bread, sometimes hot, sometimes not), he would never bother us, just sneak the bread into the basket by opening a small door from his unit. When we would get up and go to the hidden corner we would find the bread waiting there. It really felt like the we were living in hiding and he was our keeper providing us food everyday … haha 😂😅

Here is our secret bread basket:

我俩柏林民宿的主人非常细致，给我俩发了详细的从机场到民宿的路线，包括地铁班号，票价，会路过的一个韩国饭店等等。我俩很顺利地就找到了民宿，安顿了下来。 去洗衣店烘干衣服的时候，在周围转了转，感觉柏林和前面去过的所有城市都不同。没有那么光鲜亮丽，没有那么多的独特的建筑（当然也许是我俩所在的地区的原因），没有那种让人惊艳的美景，如果不看大街小巷的文字的话，甚至有种回到了国内某些二线城市的感觉， 看到最多的就是街头涂鸦。随着1989年推到柏林墙后，西柏林的涂鸦艺术涌入东柏林，这种新兴的艺术成为青年人表达声音的一种方式。柏林的涂鸦千姿百态，我期待能看到更多更奇妙的涂鸦艺术。下面就是在民宿附近随便就看到的一些涂鸦作品。

The owners of our Berlin AirBnb were very thorough in their instructions and provided us a detailed route map from the airport to the apartment, including the subway numbers, the fare, a Korean restaurant that we will pass by and so on. We managed to easily find the apartment and settled down.

When we went to use the laundromat to wash our clothes, I looked around and suddenly felt that Berlin was different from all the cities I had visited before. Not so glamorous, not many unique buildings, of course, perhaps the reason is simply the area where we are located. But so far there has not been much amazing scenery, if you ignore the words splattered all over the streets, it almost feels like I have returned to China, perhaps some second-tier Chinese city except for the street graffiti.

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, West Berlin’s graffiti art poured into East Berlin and became a new form of art for young people to express their voices. Berlin’s graffiti is full of different styles, and I look forward to seeing more and more wonderful graffiti art. Here is a sampling of the graffiti art that you can see nearby our apartment.

I am sure we will see many amazing sights in Berlin and I think the place that PJG picked out here is perfect as it shows us a part of Berlin that most tourists will never see.

我相信我俩会在柏林看到许多令人惊叹的景点，我觉得PJG选择了一个非常好的民宿地点，因为这里没有很多游客可以感受到真实的柏林和当地人的生活。