Nitty gritty winter days, too cold to be pleasant, to warm to be real wintery: that´s Berlin in the so-called cold season. There are a few very nice, very snowy and beautiful sunny days, but most times it´s plowing through the inevitable snotty-nosey grey pulp with resoluteness until something arrives that has a resemblance with spring. If one is smitten with a spell of bad luck, nothing will change with the excepton that temperatures may climb by 2 - 5ºC. But if one joins this towns biggest inofficial club, the Free-For-All-Optimist-Sunshine-Club, chances are good it´ll be a nice spring and a prequel to one of those glorious Berlin summers. Be that as it may, a couple of weeks back I´ve captured a typical winter day on a stroll through a part of Neukölln (heaven knows why we went on a stroll in the first place, and the spirits of heaven only know why I brought along a camera). Admittedly it´s not the prettiest part of the district, and also on one of winters worst days, but it reflects what I tried to explain above about the so-called cold season. There you go.

Grafitti, slushy sidewalk and more than fifty shades of grey along Maybach Ufer.

The open air couch without the analyst.

More grafitti and daring architecture with a hipster walking by.

A lot of money for cool shoes but only a minimal budget for industrial groceries.

The contrast.

With these pictures I really don´t do Neukölln a favour, but the district is much nicer than its reputation. It´s one of the last resorts of authenticism in Berlin. A population that´s mingled for the ultimate urban co-exist-feel. There are actually very nice corners and neighborhoods in Neukölln that I will portray in the near future here in the Close to Home series.

See more (and also nicer) pics of Berlin.