Our first Airbnb was located in the Berlin neighborhood of Friedrichshain, conveniently located a couple blocks from an U-Bahn station.

During our first full day in Berlin, Silver and I wandered our neighborhood and saw an unexpectedly large amount of anarchist material, including several apartment buildings covered in anti-police and anti-government banners. Gentrifickt dich was also scrawled across the top of a building; this play on words roughly translates to “Fuck you, gentrification.”

In addition to graffiti, there were a large number of paper advertisements posted on billboards and walls:

• Deutsches Theatre (a German theater company) advertised a show called Der leere Himmel (The Empty Sky), featuring some of the following key phrases:
  • Ich bin der Zorn (Trump): I am the fury
  • Ich bin auch nur ein Mensch (FIFA officials): I am also only a man
• Ritterfest (Knight festival), featuring acrobatics, a fire show, jousting, and music.
• A wanted poster for the talk show host of a radio broadcast: Haben Sie diesen Mann gehört? (Have you heard this man?)

I lost all directional credibility this first day, as I led us in the wrong direction during our grocery store search. We did eventually make it to Lidl, and even got to see some cool building art along the way.