After yesterday`s introduction of Berlin`s recent history, it`s now time to look at how much East and West Berlin are still different today. `Not at all`, some say. `Still quite different`, says the majority. East Berlin seems to be suitable for everything related to students, modern art and parties. West Berlin is business-related and cares for the `established arts` rather than the anarchist type. What else is typical for either of the two halves?

Posted by Bruno

Getting to Berlin after spending two weeks in Poland is quite an event. More so than most Polish cities, Berlin is huge, international and diverse. All of that becomes instantly clear to me when my train arrives at Berlin`s new Central Station: a huge railway in the centre of the city that serves as an immense crossroad. On the exact border of former East and West, I am left wondering how much both sides are still different. Before diving into that, here`s a first impression of what people remember from the years surrounding , the changes caused by the reunification of Germany.

Posted by Bruno

Following interviews with a railway employee in Hungary, a photographer from Slovenia, a social worker in Austria, a pub manager in Czech Republic and a forest girl in Slovakia, today is the right day for another one-person interview. This time, I am talking with Mateusz, a 25-year-old psychology student who lives in Gdansk and hopes to graduate within the next year.

Posted by Bruno

Leaving home for one year without ever getting frustrated would be impossible, and today turns out to be my annual frustration day. I will keep the reasons of these negative emotions to myself but they do serve as a perfect excuse to ask some Polish people how they deal with frustrations, and what is making them feel frustrated in the first place.

Posted by Bruno

The Polish media circus is almost as interesting and fascinating as Italian politics. It has a lot of drama, people accusing each other of this and that, papers being influenced by either political parties and/or the Church. Today`s edition of Dziennik, one of the biggest newspapers, spent one page writing about the Us Europeans project: a good reason to see what they think about the project and to investigate what other subjects are in the Polish news these days.

Posted by Bruno

Back in the Czech Republic, I was disappointed to find out that the word `ambition` seemed to be looked down on. Thinking about the future in other terms than making money and raising a family almost seemed `not done`. Hoping that Poles will have more elaborate answers to the ambition question, I am asking them today what they would like to achieve in the near future.

Posted by Bruno