If Kreuzberg and Neukölln prove to be nauseating in their increasingly expedited adoption of a metropolitan, high-style monoculture, the traveler must only venture deep enough in Prenzlauer Berg to see a city more intimate and lived-in, with quiet streets and eerie, unpopulated parks. Here one can wander through the solemn courtyards of East German apartment complexes (i.e. Ernst-Thälmann-Park) and marvel at a part of Berlin where recent history is still very much visible and commanding.