Painted Bears and the Carnival of Cultures

So last time I promised some pictures of the public transportation here. I still don't have a picture of an U-Bahn train, but here's an S-Bahn train:

The S42 is the line I use to take me part of the way to my university here. It is part of the "Ring-Bahn," which consists of the S41 (clockwise) and S42 (counter-clockwise) lines, which run in a big ring around the city.
Here's a nice view from the platform of the station:

So one day I was on my way to this lovely park to play some ukulele:

On my way there I passed by the City Hall for the part of Berlin I live in, so I decided I would go in and take a look around. To my surprise there was an awesome art exhibit in the courtyard. The exhibit consisted of identical bear sculptures painted by different artists to represent their home countries. Bears are kind of big here in Berlin - there's one on the city flag and there are painted bear sculptures all around the city. I thought these were especially cool, so I took some pictures of my favorites:

Here's what the whole courtyard looked like

USA

Germany

Namibia (front and back)

And my personal favorite, Barbados (front and back):

So last weekend the Carnival of Cultures was here in Berlin. It's a big celebration that consists of a big street festival with lots of food and drinks to buy, a big parade with different cultural groups represented, and after parties. Here are some pictures of the parade:

My favorite group overall was this little army of Taiwanese children playing drums. They were so intense, so into it, so awesome, and making good music:

The end of the parade - the street completely full with people:

Oh and don't tell my landlord, but my flatmates and I went up onto the roof of our building to have some beers and enjoy the view. Amazing. We're going back someday, possibly to have a barbeque.
Ladder to the skylight:

 Beautiful view:

And here we are on the roof, a few of my flatmates and I. Left to right: Edouard, the most French person I have ever met (and I love him for it), our resident German Steffi, the Canadian Daniel, and yours truly. Behind the camera is our other French flatmate Marine, and our Colombian Camilo was not there at the time. I'm glad I ended up with such a great, diverse group to enjoy Berlin with.

Thanks for reading everyone! Until next time!