A beautiful, bright apartment with high ceilings and large windows in a really vibrant neighborhood of Berlin. This was our first stay in Friedrichshain, and it felt somewhat less touristy than other areas we'd stayed in, which was a nice change. The local area is FULL of restaurants, with fantastic thai, indian, italian, korean, german and other cuisines available. There's a bit of distance (ie, longer travel times, 20-30 mins total, walking to the station and then taking the train) from the some of the core touring areas of the city, but to us it was worth it for the experience in this neighborhood. It's not a rowdy area, but since the apartment faces the street rather than into a courtyard, it was fairly noisy until quite late, with restaurant and bar patrons and 24h tram service going by. (BTW, the windows are modern & very good, so if the weather is cool enough to let you close them, the apartment is quite a bit quieter.) The apartment is on the 1st floor (2nd floor for north americans), at the corner of the building facing out to two streets with a fun view, so it gets light and fresh air from 2 sides, which is great. The bathroom is very spacious and nicely updated - super clean! The washing machine worked well, with a fold-up drying rack available to finish the job. Check in was a breeze, and Marius even let us come a bit earlier than the normal time, which was really appreciated! We had a small problem with internet connectivity, but Marco gave us some help right away and things worked fine after that.