Youth N Berlin !!

This is a small travelogue! Last weekend I had been to Berlin.My first impression was that its not a very great city. Definitely not in league of Paris or Rome. Maybe one reason which is very obvious is that the city has not yet recovered from after effects of WW2 bombings and division of east and west germany. The damage is still evident as you can see construction going all around. Anyway towards the end of first day, in fact as night peaked, I realised that the city is not so bad afterall. The nighlife rocks. The sony centre at potsdaimer platz is fabulous and lively. The erstwhile west Germany downtown is much better than the east. We had a nice time in a happening pub and also watched shark 3D in IMAX! this is my second IMAX movie and the experience nevers fails to awe me.
However my most memorable memory of the trip will be the AO youth hostel where we stayed. A damn cheap place for budget conscious people, but also attracts.. ahem..rich Indian s/w folks like us since it is right in city centre. The place is simply full of life and energy, just young people around, a nice pub cum recpetion area, huge dormitories and independant rooms, a cafeteria for breakfast which doubles up as internet, booze,smoke, cycles, backpacks, lockers, WCs, and constant chit chat and laughter of students from all all races and countries! The dorm where we stayed accomodates about 50 people in one big room whcih just has mattresses on the floors with comfy blankets and you can see both boys and girls, couples, young single mothers with kids all sharing the room without any consicousness! I must accept that for a while it was a culture shock to see girls freely sleeping in their nighties with room full of boys, but no one bothers to look or ogle :-) Hope my wife doesnt mind when she sees the snaps. But I really went back in time when I was a teenager, I shud have coem to this place when I was in my teens, I did feel old and out of place to see so many young men and women even though I am myself in my twenties!! There is nothing like youth and thats the point the youth hostel brought home !