The Two Berlins

I#ve really enjoyed my time in Berlin, but never would have thought that I would be turned off so much by West berlin and truly love East Berlin. Our hostel is in the über eastern section of the city. It's a little ghetto, but it's also really charming, the people are real, and everything is amazingly inexpensive. Greg and I have been living like kings for about 30 dollars a day, which, if you let it happen, you could spend by simply buying a beer and a sandwich in Paris.
Anyway, today Greg and I were dying to work out so we made our way over to the East Berlin Gold's Gym and killed ourselves which I did not realize how much I've needed. After that, we headed west to see some sights like the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Wall, and the former headquarters of the Nazi SS which was another surreal and frightening experience. West Berlin is really amazing, but it feels like the upper-east side of New York with nothing but pretentious cafes and everyone drives a mercedes, Porsche, or BMW. All in all, not my cup of tea, and we actually felt relieved when we made it back to our bombed out train station on the east side of town. It's hard to explain, but imaginedilapidated Soviet structures covered in graffiti with roofs caving in and none of the guys wear shirts for some reason. Past the train station, though, it's kind of like a less crazy part of the village in NYC and everyone seems to be about our age. All in all, I truly have enjoyed my time here, and it will have been good for us before we head on our 30 dollar budget flight to Nice tomorrow which I imagine will be about the exact opposite of East berlin in just about every way, but great in its own right. Tonight we're just gonna take it easy and eat some more Turkish food which we've been living on bc it's really great, you can have an entire meal for about 4 dollars and be full, and its probably the most protein in a single meal you can find in Europe.
Tomorrow I'll be posting from the French Riviera!