After spending the last few days in Berlin, I’ve noticed a strong connection between the past and the present. On the bike tour yesterday, our guide told us about the trend of using old factory buildings for new purposes. For instance, an old East Berlin egg-cooling factory is now Universal Music’s Berlin headquarters. While Berlin is a relatively young European city, old factories abound in downtown, their walls covered in graffiti.

On the bike tour, we spent a good amount of time in Kreuzberg, a district in West Berlin. Kreuzberg is known for attracting a large community of punks and pacifists who took advantage of West Germany’s incentive program which allowed West Berliners to avoid mandatory military service by moving to districts in West Berlin, such as Kreuzberg. Today, the district is still known for its rebellious, artistic auroa, which is evident by the many art studios and record stores. In fact, Kreuzberg is where Shamuel and I walked into a record store and started talking to one of the owners, an Italian native who moved to Berlin to pursue music. After a brief conversation, he agreed to be the subject of my story.

We’ve talked to many Berliners who moved to Germany from all around the world, including two men from Kosovo who work in an Italian restaurant, and an American from New Orleans who owns and operates a Creole and Cajun restaurant, complete with jazz, free German lessons, and films projected onto a large screen.

It’s clear that Berlin has a unique vibe that draws people in and makes it very hard to leave.