Sights Lately

It's an art vending machine! Adorned with two very regionally appopriate images: a Trabi - East Germany's state-produced car - and a stork nest - storks spend part of the year in the countryside around Berlin and their nests are highly protected and eagerly watched for. (On Rykestrasse in Prenzlauer Berg.)


Here's a new take on a common anti-nuclear logo - it usually reads "Atomkraft? Nein danke" (Nuclear energy? No thanks). This one reads "Atomkraft? WTF?!?" (On the corner near my apartment.)
I've been trying to figure out why I'm not more excited that the anti-nuclear movement here has received such an enormous boost after the disaster in Japan. (I mean, aside from the fact that "excited" is the wrong way to describe anything about a catastrophe.) Here in Germany, the issue has created even-huger-than-usual demonstrations, swayed an important state election, and even brought an about-face (albeit a less than totally credible one) from the chancellor herself.

I don't like the idea of nuclear energy any more than your average German (and believe me, your average German doesn't like it). Maybe this right now has a little too much of a bandwagon-y feel to it, something not quite fully thought out? I'm not sure. Plus, a healthy dose of skepticism is required when politicians suddenly start saying what people want to hear just before an election.

Still, it makes me smile when my socially and fiscally conservative friend (a German) calls up asking if I'll go to the anti-nuclear demonstration with him. His reasons are all utterly pragmatic and business-oriented, but he's anti-nuclear too.


Street art, Berlin.

And a typical scene in Mitte (central Berlin) on Sunday: People packed into every possible space on the sidewalk in front of a café, having brunch and coffee with their dogs and their laptops and their hipster clothes. And I mean that with love. Photo courtesy of Chad!