In the morning I went out with Annie, whom I had met in the dorms last night. Annie was "made in China" but now lives in San Francisco with U.S. Citizenship. Turns out Annie is good friends with one of my university friends, Grant, whom I had a class with at the University of Washington. Bizarre that we should meet in Berlin!
We visited Berlin Cathedral Church, an utterly massive Protestant church on the Spree River.
The entry fee is 6 euro normally, and 5 euro for young looking people that carry their old student card with them. The nave sits exposed to the central, towering dome in a way that makes the building feel strangely hollow for how thick and intimidating it looks on the outside.
You can climb more than 200 steps to the viewing deck, which circles the central dome at the top. It really gives a sense of just how flat and expansive Berlin is.
 |
| Looking down upon "Lustgarten". A dangerous name for a garden adjacent to a church. |
After the cathedral we decided to go to a nearby Vietnamese place, but on the way Annie got distracted by "Bandy Brooks, Homemade Ice Cream". To describe what happened next, I have to talk a bit about Annie.
Annie is one of the most charming and vivacious persons I've met on my trip, and is often innocently naive in the way she expresses herself. Her English isn't perfect, but she's not afraid to say whatever happens to be on her mind, usually in a blunt or otherwise unusual manner. After describing to me her very busy itinerary for the day, and myself telling her that I would quickly wash up and have breakfast so we could leave, she quipped back "Take your time, because I will take mine". Later that day she would fawn over 65 euro sandals, "So cheap!" -- a price that made me feel uncomfortable just looking at them. (Ten minutes later she would be the owner of a brand new pair of cheap, 65 euro sandals, despite having left the hostel this morning in new looking sandals).
She even told me that the only reason she voted for Donald Trump in the past presidential election was because "his son Jared Kushner is so smart", a sentiment that I found amusing since it was recently examined on an episode of Last Week Tonight. (The conclusion drawn by the show was that the primary facade, real or deceptive, of Kushner's great intelligence was the juxtaposition of his quiet and empathetic conversation style to his father's blunt and belligerent style -- that we couldn't decide one way or the other if Kushner truly does have a great mind hidden behind his stoicism because, publicly, he's done almost nothing but listen and empathize with others problems).
Annie is the kind of person that will spontaneously tell someone on the street how handsome they are or how cute that dress looks on them.
So when Annie walked into Bandy Brooks and asked in the most timidly hopeful voice at the register "Is your ice cream really homemade?" that struck off a 10-minute conversation with the owner that ended in both of us receiving free double scoops of ice cream and free currywurst and fries at the neighboring business, also owned by the same guy. My uncomfortably tight budget was henceforth eternally indebted to Annie's charm.
The owner we (by "we", I mean mostly Annie) conversed with had led an interesting life. He was Dutch, but grew up in Kenya and met his German wife while she was on vacation there, before moving back to Berlin with her.
After that pleasant experience, we walked through a park and Alexanderplatz to an Einstein Kaffee chain to sit down for a coffee. I was finally able to try an einspänner coffee, a concoction that I had been searching for in Vienna.
 |
| Einspänner is supposed to be a strong black coffee served with whip cream on top. One for two ain't bad. |
After chatting at the cafe, Annie left to continue checking off items on her itinerary and I left for the hostel.
Around 10pm Annie came back as promised and her, myself, and two guys from Hong Kong went out in search of Berlin's hottest nightclubs. If you've read my past blog posts, you'll know that, historically, I never enjoy nightclubs. Tonight would be a partial exception.
We first went to Berghain, a club infamous for its seemingly arbitrary entrance criteria.
After waiting in line for anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours, bouncers at the door will either give you the nod and allow you to pay for entrance, or the boot and send you away. We arrived around 12:30am and waited in line for 30 minutes before finding ourselves underneath the bouncers judgmental gaze. While waiting, we had seen perhaps 20 to 40 percent of those in line be rejected. Apparently they liked the cut of our jibs because they let us in to the club to pay the 12 euro entrance fee. (I wish they hadn't.)
We payed 3.3 euros each for small bottle beers and waited for the awesome to start. (It never did.) The music that night had a strange sound to it. Sort of like house music inspired by the intro to Michael Jackson's Thriller, except it never settles down into something interesting to the ears. The music was also, of all things, fairly quiet for a club. We decided to leave after 30 minutes, completely let down by the high expectations set by Annie and whatever NYT or GC article she had read on the internet before coming to Berlin.
[It was only later after some googling that I realized we had seen only one tiny portion of Berghain and that their main club floor, which had been completely blocked off to us while we were there from 1 to 1:30, is massive and cavernous. This is why researching a place before you go is important!!!]
Of course, we hadn't given up on the night yet, and took a taxi to Sisyphos.
It was partly my idea to go to Sisyphos, for no other reason than that I had heard its named mentioned in the lyrics of a Vulfpeck song I liked. After another 30-minute queue, we each payed the 15 euro entrance fee and went inside. While we were there, there were two dance floors open. The smaller one was located in a single room about the size of a small single-family home. The larger dance floor was the ground floor of a factory that used to manufacture dog treats. I actually rather enjoyed the larger dance floor. It was reasonably packed, but not uncomfortably so, and the mix of strobe lights, bright flashes of blue and red, and the artificial smoke made for a really neat experience. To enter the dance floor, you walk through a room with green lasers bouncing off mirrors in a symmetrical pattern. If you turn your phone flashlight on, you can use it to "write" on the wall, leaving green marks that fade with time. I'm still not sure the science behind all that.
I was having a good time, and I think Annie was too, but the two Hong Kongers were still not fans of the music and wanted to leave ASAP. I was a bit peeved, since this was Berlin, a city renowned for its techno clubs, and these two came clubbing with us despite not liking techno music -- but it was already 4am, I had burnt through most of the 40 euro I had brought with me, and a future version of myself was telling me that it was probably best if we all go back to the hostel now.
[Unlike Berghain, it seems we were actually able to witness all Sisyphos has to offer.]
We took a taxi back to the hostel and I made myself a PBJ before sleeping for the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment