Though my travels are months ago,
2013 ends with many memories,
new and old adventures,
old friends,
and new friends
and a great deal of images...

To end the Berlin series,
I thought of the soaring tower of the bombed out but partially restored Neue Synagogue,
still centred in the heart of old Jewish area around Hackescher Markt.

I thought of it partially as a haunted memory of so much tragedy,
but also,
because it is still there,
and still part of Berlin,
as it moves forward...
Like all of us...

And just being...
In Berlin's urban tapestry.

Nikon D600,  28mm-70mm AFD Nikkor lens.

The Berlin urban symphony,
hanging out, listening, and watching
performing and...
just being.

Image 1, An outdoor Sunday performance by the Berliner Symphony Orchestra  on Unter Den Linden.
Image 2 and 3, Bicycle powered Karaoke performances in front of thousands in Maurer Park.
Image 4, Maurer Park flea market, everything is for sale...
Image 5 and 6, Improvised music performances in Volkspark Friedrichshain, for who ever shows up.
Nikon D600, 28mm-70mm AFD Nikkor lens.

And best of all,
In a city seemly obsessed by order,
there is spontaneous disorder
everywhere...

and just hanging out...
Nikon D600.

Order,
and people starting to screw it up...

Berlin...
Nikon D600, 105mm F2.8 AFD Nikkor lens.

Order...

Image 1, Nazi era Luftwaffe Headquarters, (Now the Ministry of Finance) Wilhelmstrasse, Berlin.
Image 2, Greek arcade (complete with 1945 era battle damage) at the entrance to the Pergamon Museum on Museum Island, Berlin.
Nikon D600, 50mm F1.4 AFD Nikkor lens.

My favourite formal living room...
Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt.

Matching and heavily reconstructed churches the Deutscher Dom and the Franzosisher Dom at either end of the square with the Konzerthaus as it's centre piece.
Nikon D600, 28mm-70mm AFD Nikkor lens.

Berlin, a canal city?
Apparently there are more bridges then Venice...
And from a canal boat,
a unique way to see another of Berlin's personalities...

Nikon D600, Various AFD Nikkor lenses.

Berlin's children,
seemingly everywhere,
and enjoying urbanity,
in their own particular way...

Image 1, Young lady enjoying a stroll on top of the memorial murals to the 1953 East Berlin uprising, in front of the old East Berlin Bundesrat on Leipzigerstrasse.
Image 2, Wo bist du mein liebshen? 
Image 3, Heir bin ich Papa! Father and daughter play hide and seek around a huge and bullet scarred fountain in the Lust Garten on Museum Island.
Image 4, Texting on the escalator to the Bellevue S Bahn Station.
Image 5, Playing with reflections, Sophienstrasse.
Nikon D600, 28mm -70mm AFD Nikkor lens

And with memories of Berlin's unforgettable heavy hand of history...
it's inhabitants and it's visitors,
occupy their city,
for it's present and,
where it is going...

,
Nikon D600, various AFD lenses.

The Berlin of the past,
the present,
and of tomorrow...
the stage for the everyday...

Image 1, Shops under the 'S Bahn' station at Hackescher Markt.
Image 2, Bike path beside the 'Nazi era Luftwaffe headquarters / East German Stasi headquarters/ and now Federal Government building.
Image 3, What is playing at the cinema, Hackescher Markt.
Image 4, Tunnel under Unter den Linden beside the Spree River.
Nikon D600, 28mm -70mm AFD Nikkor lens.

And my favorite urban flavour,
street life in Berlin...
(Leben auf der Strasse in Berlin)

Image 1, Evidence of the 1945 'Battle of Berlin' is a back stop for bicycle parking.
Image 2, Texting under chunks of the Berlin Wall near 'Check Point Charlie'.
Image 3, Lunch tables ready in the alleys of 'Hackescher Hofe', the old Jewish area, largely empty of Jews.
Image 4, Chilling out in Friedrichshein, a bombed out industrial district now a park complete with 'hill like' landscape features (rubble piles), live music and out door beer garden.
Nikon D600, 28mm-70mm AFD Nikkor lens.

Wall art as social commentary,
social backdrop,
a continuation of Berlin's long history of self examination...

Nikon D600, 28mm-70mm AFD Nikkor lens.