East Germany

After leaving Gedser i took the ferry to Rostock where i stayed for two wonderfull weeks.
Rostock is the largest city of the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, situated in the old Eastern Germany, with a population of 200 000 residents.
In the Eatern Germany times, Rostock was the main port, with an incredible traffic, with reunification of Germany the port lost importance for the other bigger ports has Hamburg. Nowadays is more common to see a ferry full of turists from Scandinavia than a ship carring products. The all state is in crisis, the young people imigrate to west because there is no job, there is about 20% of unemployment in the state, agriculture is disapearing and industry is dead, the only hope is on turism, that is more intense near the baltic coast, supporting cities like Rostock and Wisma, but even here the crisis is felt. Nowadays is least expensive for a German turist to go to the warm coast of Greece than stay in the Cold and rainny shores of the baltic. The number of women in the state is decreasing more and more beacause of immigration. Did you know that even this State is still controlled by PDS( the old left party of the east) the racism and extream right has more power in this state than in the others. The differences between east and west are very big, here is not so common to find an english speaking person.
The city of Rostock was completly distroyed during the second world war, the cty because was small and compacted served has a test point by the allies to see how to atack the other cities. the bomb attack was very effective and destroyed all the city just in a few hours. After the war the city was recovered but not all, some buildings were left the same in a way to show how things were before the war. After the reunification of Germany all the main cities were totally recovered and the number of falling buildings is much smaller, now you can see the big churches totally recovered. People say that during the comunists time the country was falling appart, the state of the houses was very bad. One of the heritage from the comunists time were the very big dormitory, worker houses. Some of the buildings reminds me my city, the social neighborhoods.
Rostock is a very old city and has one of the oldest Universitys in Europe. The city used to be surounded by an old wall and we still can see some of their remainings. The main buildings are the gate doors and the city hall. One of the most funny things about the city is that in some churches there are people living there like they were in a flat.
There are some interestings parques and churchs, in of the churches you can go to the top of the tower and see all the city, in other church you wilol find a very strange clock that tells you hours, days, zodiac signe, sun set, etc but doesn't say the minutes. The other great sight is to see the harbor by night.
When i was there it was a special day, it was shopping day, so stores only close at midnight. It was really a great day i even saw a very nice fire show.
http://www.rostock.de/Internet/stadtverwaltung/default.htm
for more info about rostock and w(good luck almost everything is in German)

photo:University of Rostock
Fountain in front of the University
Diferent views of Rostock