Yearly Archives: 2011

New Year’s Eve in Berlin

the official party at Brandenburg Gate Also this year Berlin will host one of the world’s largest New Year’s Eve parties. The event will take place downtown Berlin on an area over two kilometers long, between two renowned  landmarks: the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor) and the Victory Column (Siegessäule). With over a million visitors, dozends […]

Berlin under construction: Kunsthalle, Library, Autobahn

Slowly but surely first rumors/reports about the coalition talks between Conservatives and Social Democrats are leaking, According to the media recent talks between SPD and CDU were focusing on plans to build a new public art gallery – the Berlin Kunsthalle – and a new public library – the “Metropolen Bibliothek” – the latter to […]

Firebombs disrupt rail traffic in Berlin and Brandenburg

In the last four days over 15 Firebombs were found near in seven different locations in  and around Berlin. Only some went off, damaging technical equipment, disrupting rail traffic – but nobody got harmed. On the other hand tens of thousands of commuters are late on a daily basis – anger and frustration are on […]

Green-Red coalition talks fail at Autobahn plans

First it seemed as if both sides had found a compromise regarding the expansion of the city autobahn A100 – a compromise that would have kept the Social Democrats and the Greens from loosing their face. But now this compromise appears to be a foul compromise – and both parties have a different interpretation of […]

Berlin Marathon – world record and perfect weather

Today the 38th Berlin-Marathon is taking place – or actually it took place. For some runners the Marathon is already over, some others still have to rund a couple of kilometers before they can relax.. Patrick Makau from Kenia was first – again – and with just about two hours (2:03:38) he broke the world […]

Berlin city council elections 2011

The people of Berlin can lean back and relax – they have already voted. Now Klaus Wowereit – or actually the ruling Social Democrats Party has to decide, with whom they want to work together for the next five years. The first option would probably to partner with the Green Party. But looking at the […]

Kastanienallee is a treasure! Keep it as it is!

Today is another “day of action” against the re-construction Kastanienallee in on the schedule: meet friends, see bands, drink a drink, and sign the petition against the demolition  of Prenzlauer Berg’s eye candy street #1 – also known as Casting Allee..:). Currently some 7000 people have already signe the petition – another 3000 would be […]

50 years of Berlin Wall

As you might know: today 50 years ago, on August 13th, 1961 East German soldiers and workers began to build the Berlin Wall. For the Western World this came as a complete surprise. Not only had Walter Ulbricht, head of East Germany’s government in those days, only weeks before said “Nobody would intend to build […]