I've got a lot to say on this.
After being gone most of August, I feel a pressure to really live up my time here not only in Germany, but in Berlin. If I'm going to be here, I need to make the absolute most of my time because I'm only living here 7 months.
That being said I totally stayed in Friday night... and didn't leave the house till 5pm on Saturday. But I made cookies?
I spent a LOT of time on EWB which is very important to me, but kinda a bummer that it takes up my time exactly during the summer. And I threw some Deustch-learning in there, so it wasn't totally a loss. However I was super ready for my co-worker's party on Saturday.
I meet up with Carmen at Warshauer Str. and we go grab one incredible burger. Or maybe I was ruined after I had a döner buger for lunch on Tuesday. Either way I was in heaven with that fresh burger and a Fritz-Kola. It was nice to get to hang out with Carmen again - I think the last time we hung was before the wedding, and I think we also got burgers (Burgermeister - the best). She's rolling along really well with her master's thesis, as well as making friends in her team. Bettina has become a new friend of ours, she's on Carmen's CEE (Central & Eastern Europe) Network Planning team. We've been getting lucky that as interns go back to school, we befriend a full-timer. Sorry for them when we leave...
OH interjection story here but just before Carmen and I got up to leave, we see a man in a kilt roller skating (not blading) with blue light-up wheels.
He rolls into the shop for a burger, no questions asked. He also had to roll through the bachelor party that was going on in the sidewalk in front of a restaurant in which the bachelor was full-on naked. Still no questions asked. Service was still served. Just another day in Berlin.
We met up with Bettina and her husband (one of maybe three people I know of at work that's married - and I know a lot of people) at the Sbahn, and rode together to our coworker, Sime's, party. He just moved to Mitte (very fancy and 5min walk to work) so he was having a house-warming party. Now Sime is a funny guy - he's Croatian and also works with Carmen in CEE, not that that's what makes him funny. He's just incredibly sarcastic and always has a smile on his face so you truly never EVER know when he's being serious. BUT he's friendly and non-judgmental, so I like him and we're friends. It's just SUPER weird and strange that HE of all people has this incredible, top-floor apartment in Mitte with a balcony view of the TV Tower. WHAT??
The party was nice, not too many people were in town so it was a bit smaller than expected, but I really enjoyed who was there. It was me, Carmen, Bettina &husband, Erik from my team, Emilie (another full-timer friend), and a French guy who's name I can't remember oops and his girlfriend. I got to speak with the girlfriend for a while in French, and then the French guy comes over and she's like "she speaks very good French" and he goes "ah really?? I had no idea!" and I was like "ya Fabien wouldn't speak French to me so I didn't think anyone would" and he told me I should come to the French team and say hi. Which I would LOVE because well they're not a super high-functioning team but I have some potential favorites in there: Daniel, the only non-Frenchman, he's Colombian and he's SUPER nice and I want to befriend him as everyone leaves. Augustin, incredible dance moves, kinda nerdy apparently and yeah ok doesn't say hi even though we obviously know each other but I'm still a fan of him. And there's a few potential gal pals which would rock. Long story short I'm bringing cookies on Monday to the French team.
The party winds down and Sime says he's gonna go to a club. Fighting to prove my youth to myself (and live up my time in Berlin), I tell him I'm in. As everyone heads downstairs however, all but Sime and me go to the Sbahn to go home. I almost follow so as to not cramp Sime's style, but he said it was fine if I come so I went. Whatever. We Uber (!fancy!) to the club which is actually very near where I went paddleboarding and got drinks another time with Carmen and her friend. It was good that I went because this is a night-life place I should have checked off my list by Christmas.
We go in, greet his friend who is a bouncer/cashier, he pays the 10eur fee for both of us (plus the uber... again, where is all this money coming from with your fancy apartment??) and we scan the place for his friends and go to the bar when we conclude they left hours ago. Oh also it's 5am. We're hangin' at the bar, chatting away which was fun - Sime and his whole friend group are like older brothers to me, and they see me as a little sister. They always include me and are very respectful and protective if need be. I really enjoy the conversations I have with all of them - they're just nice and I can tell they care about me and my life but none of them have ever crossed even any minor lines. I just feel like I need to put that (very true) caveat in there now that Mary is at a bar with a man.
And that's what was so funny - I was at a bar, no a club, with Sime. Only Sime. Nothing was weird or different or anything, it was just hilarious that I was at a club with only Sime at 6am. Maybe you have to know Sime to see the funny in this.
We go to the dance floor - and this is where my criticism of Berlin clubs begin - and I try to blend in with the locals. Emmi once described club-dancing as a "relationship between you and the DJ". No matter who you go with - your friends, your husband, your siblings - you all face the DJ with some amount of personal space around you. And you dance. But not dance-dance. You bob back and forth and swing your head around and sometimes flail your arms. This is the dance style of the city that is the capital of techno-clubbing. You know when you walk into a party and think "wow I need to be wayyy drunker to enjoy this" Berlin clubs leave you feeling really left out if you didn't do drugs. And not like weed. Like hard drugs.
Assuming that there's not enough cocaine coming through the borders to satisfy all of Berlin's nightlife (and I know I'm being Midwest innocent), I conclude that there must be some people here who are not absolutely stoned out of their brains. Therefore, I should theoretically be able to do this dance.
It's really hard.
No robot, no dropping it low, no Wop. Not that there's words anyways. I don't know how to say this without sounding like a total hippie, but you just gotta let go. There's enough smoke and flashing LEDs in this pitch-black room that it feels like you're by yourself anyways. Yes, being drunker probably would've at least helped, but it's so hard I think to stay drunk in Europe (lol yes the whole continent) just because the night is so long, it wears off so quick, especially with all the moving around you do.
After about 40 minutes of half-sober Berlin-dancing, I tell yawning Sime that I want to leave. We hail a taxi outside the club - again, a taxi, so fancy!! He also has a one-on-one German tutor so I'm like still really confused where he gets all this money because I think I would consider Flixbus long-term. But people don't save here; whatever, topic for another time.
In the end, I got home at 7am and took off my smoky clothes (another bonus of Berlin nightlife) and laid on top of my bed, waiting for the "morning" so I could take a shower.
I love you Berlin nightlife, but your clubs are straight up weird. Not judgmental, but so damn weird. Kinda like the city. It's truly a one-of-a-kind place.
And I love it.
2025-02-17