Head on back to Europe for the answer to our Geo Quiz. We were searching for a city that was the capital of a Kingdom, a communist country and is now the capital of a unified nation.
That Kingdom was Prussia, the Community country East Germany or the DDR, and the unified nation is Germany. That makes the answer Berlin.
Missing the old DDR? Have a hankering for some communist era atmosphere? Check into the new Ostel Hostel in Berlin. It opened it's doors on May Day this year. The prices are affordable and the décor is decidedly Iron Curtain. The building is period, the furniture is period, even the wall paper is period.
Just walk into the lobby...
Lilly Lehmann: We have of course the clocks with the time of Havana, Peking, Moscow and Berlin of course. Then we have a big map of the former zone of the DDR
That's Lilly Lehmann, She's the receptionist at the Ostel. Lehmann says walking into one of the rooms will take you back a few decades...
Lehmann: The wall paper is original. Only a few walls are full of this wall paper. That means, if it would be in the whole room it would be a little bit stressy for your eye. You know what I mean. With the stripes orange and brown. And you had the whole room filled with this. It would be, a little bit stressy. Let's say it like this.
Pictures of the former leader of the DDR, Erich Honecker, adorn all of the rooms. That is they did until they went missing.
Lehmann: Many many guests take if for souvenirs. It's a kind of phenomenon that they steal it. Because of this we decided to sell it in the reception.
They do have wifi but you can only use it in the lobby. There are no TVs in the rooms just radios. No mini bar or mints on your pillow. But they do have a Stasi Suite.
Lehmann: One bigger double room is called Stasi suite, as the secret police in the GDR. And the thing is you nearly can hear what your neighbor is doing, when your neighbor is using the toilet and because of this we said you have the guarantee that your neighbor could be a member of the Stasi, they can hear nearly everything you're doing.
Just like the good old days. Business is so good the owners are looking into opening another Ostel in Leipzig.
For your very own picture of Erich Honecker visit our website at www.theworld.org.