Tourist in Berlin

This Easter my parents came to visit me here in Berlin. With them came the opportunity to do some sightseeing. Not that I haven't had the time to do it sooner, it's just not the same when you do it alone. So anyway, I spent parts of my Easter as a tourist. Here are some photos to document my experiences ;)

A Sunday afternoon in Weissensee

This afternoon, I took a walk around the neighbourhood (which yes, does include a small lake). The sun was out most of the time and even though it was a bit windy it was it was great walk! Spring in Berlin isn't bad at all :p

Here are some photos from my trip:

Pretty, pretty flowers!

These pretty daffodils are currently decorating my Berlin flat :)

After 4 years of living with a guy that claims to be allergic to daffodils, I am finally able to buy these lovely things. To me daffodils are an essential part of spring and not having been able to buy them have maybe not been torture, but it certainly hasn't been nice. Because look at how pretty they are :) 

So that's at least one positive side effect of living apart. Now I just have to remember to clear the flat of these yellow flowers before Mr boyfriend comes to visit ;)

Life as a commuter part II

As mentioned earlier, I was not used to commuting before I moved to Berlin. Which of course means that I have no grounds for comparison. I have however made some observations that I find odd and even a bit rude.

Commuters in Berlin generally behave well. They wait to get on the bus, tram or train until everyone has gotten off, they offer their seat to the elderly and so on. But there's one thing I find strange. It might just be me that has a different idea of good public transport behaviour, but I think it's only natural when sitting in an aisle seat and the passenger in the window seat gets off to move to the window seat. This way other passengers wanting to sit down won't have to crawl over you to get to the seat. But apparently that's not how it's done, at least not in Berlin. Everyday, I see people having to squeeze past other passengers to get to an available seat.

An other thing that I have noticed is that no one seems to want to vacate their foldable seat when it's gets crowded. Doing so would free up some space and make room for more passengers. Plus it can't be all that comfortable to be seated while everyone in your imidiate vicinity is standing rather close.

I'm not saying that commuters in Berlin are bad commuters. Because as I mentioned before I don't know how commuters behave everywhere else. I'm merely making an observation.