- Torsten, EasyJet employee
- New German friend. Age 12 and 1/2
- House Music
- Alt-J at Astra Kulturhaus
- The ultimate Bucket List entry
Day 144
When I packed for 6 weeks around Europe, I wrote a list, set aside several hours and yet somehow came away without headphones, socks and, most importantly, underwear. On Thursday, very hungover after Dodgeball drinks and within 20minutes, I packed absolutely everything I needed. I think there's some sort of lesson there.
I checked in at Gatwick airport (through electronic boarding pass gates and after some chat with the first friendly baggage check assistant I've ever seen at an airport) and headed for some food. I felt adequately ashamed at heading straight for Wetherspoons, so I pretended to read the Cafe Rouge and Frankie and Benny's menus before slinking back to 'The Flying Horse' for some wine and Fish and Chips. The bartender 'warned' me that my food might take up to 10minutes to arrive. That was fine by me. I know if you eat food straight from the microwave it can be HOTTER THAN THE SUN. Better let that top quality cuisine have some resting time.
I'd been sitting for 3 minutes when my food arrived. Fish and Chips within 5 minutes. Hot fish and chips. Thank god for microwaves. I might have starved to death if I'd had to wait that whole 10minutes.
I boarded my Easyjet flight via a tunnel. None of that walking out in the cold and boarding the plane from the ground for Easyjet anymore. Oh no. I sensed this was going to be a good flight. I picked a random seat on the plane before realising that Easyjet now have allocated seating. What's happened to this airline? It's suddenly become civilised, organised and not unpleasant. I was sitting next to a German woman before her 12/13 year old son swapped so she could sit next to his dad a few rows down. He started speaking to me in perfect English and after a few attempts at responding in German, I resorted to it too. I imagine this sounds patronising, but I'm pretty sure as a 12 year old I was scared of sitting next to strangers and yet this kid not only did that but also started a conversation in his second language. Impressive. If I were 13 years younger...This family were on their way back from London where they'd been visiting his older sister who was studying there for the year. With a twinkle in his eye, he told me he'd had to miss school to visit her...quite a sacrifice on his part. We took off after a funny introduction by Cabin Manager Torsten (Easyjet have started making jokes? This is mental!) and I watched this kid play Temple Run for the majority of the flight. We shook hands as we came into Berlin and I told him English was good. With a smirk he told me mine was too. I headed out from the airport to catch the train to Schonhauser Allee to where Gurk lived. It was snowy in Berlin, and there was a rail replacement service on the line I needed. Berlin; like home from home.
Day 145
I did very little during the day. Aside from a quick coffee trip out and a visit to Netto, I sat in Gurk's apartment watching the snow fall on the Cuban embassy until she finished work. She came back for dinner and after some wine we caught the tram to Warschauer Strasse to meet my friend Harry who was staying at the Hostel Plus. Wow. What a hostel. It was massive and like some sort of Mediterranean hotel with potted plants everywhere and a 'super cool' (their words, not mine) swimming pool. Gurk and I headed to the bar to find lots of 18 year olds watching MTV videos and drinking sugary cocktails; we crashed back down to earth then. Harry was with a crowd, some of whom I imagine had risked hyperglycemic shocks with those sugary cocktails, though in his defence he only really knew one of the group; he warned us about two of the guys with a description that suggested they were embodying Dick and Dom. Stellar lads. They'd both gone to some sex spa whilst out there, paying €70 for use of the swimming pool, spa and sex workers. Classy. Last night one of them had slept with an insecure teenage blonde who kept coming over to us asking where he was. They appeared with childish energy and giggles and we had our first interaction when the guy leapt over to us having just spoken to the blonde, smacked his hand three times on the table gleefully, yelling 'what do you do when she tells you you've got a big dick!'. We left soon after.
We headed to a club called Prince Charles which was set in an old swimming pool. The bar area was in the sunken pool area which was still tiled over. We ordered a glass of wine and received BEAKERS of wine in return. We spent the next few hours dancing to House Music. Which apparently I love. House. I don't think I knew what that was before.
When we were housed out, we caught a train back (they run 24h it's amazing!) and got a kebab.
Day 146
Gurk is moving back to London so is selling every single item in her apartment. We were woken around 9am when a guy came to collect a stand-alone clothes rail. Gurk dismantled it and put it in a bin liner. We were about to go back to sleep on her mattress without bed (that got sold last week) when we heard the comic sound of the bag ripping and metal poles bouncing down the stairs. For €3, he wasn't getting any extra assistance. We went back to sleep.
Gurk had to go to work (ON A SATURDAY) so I lounged about before going to join her at Zoologischer Garten. It was freezing cold. I was waiting a while outside Burger King before I became fed up with drunk men coming up to me (it was 1pm! There are so many drunks in Berlin) and headed inside to keep warm. The only people who come up to you in Berlin are people looking for ein feuer (a lighter) or drunks who I presume want the same but can't form words properly. Gurk arrived and we went to a really cool homely, unexpectedly spacious cafe called Schwarzes cafe. Apart from the slow service (because it was so busy) and the mammoth menu, it was great. Gurk says it's open 24h so she often comes here for a quick beer after she finishes work at 11pm. There's only one good thing in that habit. She ordered some sort of Kaiser crepes, deliciously crusted with caramelised sugar whilst I had ein Omelette. Gurk had to shoot back to work so I sat with a huge soup bowl of coffee, reading the New Statesmen, learning about the real issue behind the Horse Meat scandal. We're not cashing-in on British agricultural potential apparently. And we feed cows expensive soya, instead of the free grass.
We headed back to Gurk's apartment at 5.30pm to find her Canadian friend Sam waiting for us. Sam's in a band called 'Dear Reader'. We drank a Magnum of champagne and then headed back to Warschauer Strasse to go to Astra Kulturhaus to see Alt-J perform. I've seen the band a few times. I mean, they're constantly touring. Barely a week goes by without another Alt-J tour being announced. And they're not known for amazing live performances. They're alright, but not much is normally added to the music seeing them live. Might as well sit at home listening to the album whilst doing a crossword. The band came on around 8.30pm. Pretty early for a headliner, eh? They started with intro and played their socks off. They'd really kicked it up a notch. Perhaps fuelled by the enthusiastic and upbeat audience, or just having got the hang of it after numerous shows, but either way they killed it. The songs were much more powerful than usual and the formats changed slightly to fit the live setting. Brilliant. I've never seen them smile so much. After an encore of Tarot, the house music came up and rather than some gentle post-gig Led Zeppelin folk number, some sort of house music came on and the crowd went mental. It really was a great show.
Afterwards we tried to break into the backstage area. Sam's in a band right? He just kept saying 'we're from the label'. It wasn't working. We didn't know what label we were supposed to be from*. This guy in the car wasn't having any of it. Undeterred, we went further back and Sam climbed over a metal gate whilst I pelted him with snowballs. He came back defeated a few minutes later and a mega snowball fight ensued. It was 11pm and as we became increasingly soaked and covered in snow, Sam kept yelling 'no really, we're from the label! Seriously!'. I fell and whacked my head and knee but that didn't stop my attacks. Gurk took photos as we finished the battle with some snow angels. Sam used the snowball battle to resume his break-in attempts but some angry English guy saw straight through it. Sam and Gurk went to smoke so I lingered in the snow watching the tour bus try to turn on the ice. Twiddling my thumbs looking for something to do, I had a brainwave. I was on my hands and knees rolling the body of a snowman when a man came and offered me drugs. As a 25year old making a snowman on her own outside a music venue in Berlin, I must have looked like the perfect client. "No thanks", I said. "I'm making a snowman".
Gurk and Sam came back and politely waited as I finished rolling the head and added some stick arms. I stood back, proudly looking at my knee-high friend. Gurk was about to take a photo when a new item suddenly appeared on my mental bucket list. Without a second thought, I kicked the little snowman's head off.
We briefly went to a bar called KPTN (Captain). Gurk hadn't even taken her coat off when some guy hit on her (presumably saying in German 'keep your coat on, love, you've pulled'). We left shortly after and got a taxi home. Gurk was worried he was taking us down some dodgy route when the guy announced that there were problems with traffic due to some guy called Mario Barth playing at the O2 venue. 12,000 fans were blocking the roads. He's a German comedian apparently. Gurk commented that she hadn't realised they existed.
We got home and on thinking the snow had given my hair an exotic damp look, I realised I actually looked like a lion.
*Infectious Records we later discovered.
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