Berlin Baby!

I've finally made it to Berlin to see my lovely girl Pauline. We realized it was the summer of 2011 that we first met, so not really that long ago-but with so many failed Europe trips under my belt, it feels like this one was forever in the making.

Sweetheart that she is, Pauline picked me up at the airport and we trained into Berlin together. Apparently people don't live in houses much here, but rather really lovely apartments, and Pauline's place is no exception. So cozy and so cool! It's got all these neat geometric angles in the white walls, built in bookshelves, and clever shoe hideaways. I seriously love it.

I joined Pauline and her parents, Beate and Hagen, for their "Friday Night Dinner" (a la Gilmore Girls) at "SoHo house" a fancyshmance club where Pauline's dad is a member. Pauline's family, with intense generosity, treated me to dinner and to drinks up on the rooftop bar afterwards. It was so nice to hang out in a family-type setting. Pauline and her mom are super tight like me and my mom are, so while it somewhat made me homesick, it also made me happy to see that daughter/mother bond in action. Pauline's parents are freaking cool. And so friendly.

I had a really interesting chat with them at the bar about what it was like to live in Easy Berlin, and how their lives changed when the wall came down. It's pretty crazy that just one generation away from mine and Pauline's experienced all that. They had some very intriguing things to say, some of which I'd never thought about.

After hanging out a bit longer at the bar, Pauline and I trained to another area of town to meet her friend Sophia and Sophia's bf Manni.

It was an adventure finding the place- a couple of the gate entrances were locked, so we had to go around the block to get in. It turned out that we were at a part art exhibition part bar space, and it was quite hipster and cool. The beginning of the exhibition was a projected video of a black guy in a white linen suit rolling around in a room with a floor entirely covered in white cups and saucers. Just rolling around on dishes. Then, eventually, he starts pouring coffee into the cups, across the walls, all over himself...then does some more rolling. Modern art man. Kevin and Walter would have peed their pants.

After checking out the exhibition we went into the bar area, which was kind of a grotto/maze like building, with worn down walls and skinny hallways and staircases leading to little rooms and cubby holes. The whole place was lit with candlelight. We had a drink there and danced a bit, and then trained home together and got to bed at 2:30ish.

The market near Pauline's house

Me and Pauline with our Gluwein

The next morning, Pauline and I joined her dad for breakfast. He'd made me a poached egg (Pauline is vegan right now) and the table was laid with bread, meats and a variety of different spreads and jams and things. When I asked if that was a typical German breakfast, Hagen told me it was "well, a typical Boßdorf breakfast". Pauline and I took our time getting ready, and eventually joined her parents at an adorable farmer's market right near by. Pauline explained that her neighbourhood is really in to organic living, and that showed in all the families it together buying produce for their dinners. Hagen treated the gals to a steaming mug of gluwein (mulled wine) that hit the spot on that crisp autumn day (have I mentioned how cold it is here? Negatives man. It's all about the layering).

Pauline and I continued our afternoon with a stroll through the area, popping in and out of stores and both buying "stirnbands" to protect our poor ears from the cold. They're apparently very trendy in Berlin right now. Check me out.

Love Berlin!

That evening, we met Pauline's friend Sebi for dinner in Kreuzberg, and went to a Mexican place. I had the peanut chicken with rice (more Thai than Mexican, no?) at Sebi's recommendation, and it was delicious.

After dinner, we met Sophia at an "off theater" to see a modern dance performance by a company she had recently joined. Oh Karley, be jealous. The theme of the show was "rebellion", and 3 distinct pieces explored the idea in equally neat ways. We three girls agreed though that the last dance was or favourite- and it also happened to be the one choreographed by Sophia's new teacher. There was a DJ'ed after party following the show, so we grabbed drinks
and got our dance on. People were being pretty modern and crazy in their movements, so that was super fun.

Our next stop (after a quick food stop) was Pauline's friend Anna's place, where a gang of her friends were together "pregaming". They were playing "boxi"- King's Cup. Gotta love the internationality of drinking games. They were all speaking German, but with the exception of Pauline's translating the "never have I ever's" I mostly got on just fine.

Because there were so many people there, there wasn't a lot of English being spoken, but I was totally content to just sip my machi-vodka and soak up the fact that I was hanging out like a real Berliner.

We left Anna's place around maybe 2 or so, at which point the night was still far from over. We made another stop for food, and then headed to "Suicide Circus" to meet Manni. We then made our way to "Watergate"- a club that would make Stefon from Weekend Update proud. Pauline said it was like, one of the coolest club ls in Berlin and definitely not easy to get into.

The view from Watergate

Except when you have mad connections that is!!!!! A friend of Manni's was friends with the DJ- or something- and had a list of fake names that were on the guest list. So amidst a bunch of German that sounded like complete gobbledygook to me, I was told "you're Mykke" and herded past the 2-3 hour lineup of people, exempt from the 15€ cover charge, and into the club with one of the best sound systems in the country (maybe in Europe? I can't recall) and a dynamite floor to ceiling view of the river.

We got in to the club at around 3:30am. Pauline was all "it's early...so the music isn't very good...it'll get better". Excuse me, it's early? Oh yes. So. I thought Amsterdam was crazy what with their bars being open til 4am. Sophia and Pauline couldn't even figure out the German word for "closing hours". They don't exist! The clubs open up on Friday night and JUST STAY OPEN. They just never close!!! Apparently one of Watergate's beat features is its Eastern facing windows, and everyone just dances the night away and then watches the sunrise fill the room with light.

Pauline and I in the wee hours

Well. The sunrise wasn't scheduled until 7:33 for Sunday morning, and Pauline had to work the next day, so we couldn't so that. We did, however stay until 6:30am, which means I went TO BED at 7am. Berlin man! It's frickin' crazy! It's frickin' awesome!