Berlin

So yeh, this is long overdue. It has been nearly an entire month since two of my good friends and I went to Berlin for a few days. It was my first piece of time away from the UK since Summer, and at that, a very welcome break. If there's one thing that I have learned from the book I have been reading recently, it's that perspective is an extremely valuable thing.

One way to gain perspective is by being, experiencing and observing outside the realms of one's normative existence. This is why going to new, alien places is so important to me.



We didn't have many plans. I bought a guide book which I read a little, but mainly just looked at the pictures. Our main intentions were contrived of walking around a lot, and seeing what we could find. This worked. Luckily, my friend knows someone who lives in the city, and she was able to point us in the right direction. Marie, I owe you for this.



Berlin wasn't really as I expected it to be. Saying that, the only place that I've been to that was exactly how I expected it to be was Dublin, and I expected that to be shit. Loan behold, it was. Complete hellhole. Too cold, too expensive, too many angry people.



But yeh, when I first arrived in Berlin, I was deflated. I thought it was very flat, and I was looking around and not seeing very much. It reminded me of the former Soviet Union, going by what I've seen in the movies, in a bad way. After these initial negative impressions however, a really nice place emerged.



If there's one thing I absorbed when I was in Berlin, it was space. Due to the period of transition and regeneration that the city is undergoing at the moment, there is so much of it. Spaces in between buildings, spaces in between roads, spaces in between people; nothing seemed on top of anything else. This was very soothing, and it pleased me greatly.



So yeh, by day we seemed to end up walking a lot, eating a lot, looking at a lot of street art, looking at a lot of shops that sold Nike Air Max and Cheap Monday, drinking coffee a lot, smoking a lot and riding around on the tube a lot. By night, we managed to locate some really cool parties. Luck was on our side. My favourite place was what this guy told us was called 'Golden Gate,' although it didn't really have a name. We think it was called this because a McDonalds sign is visible across the way from the entrance. It was under an arch, covered by shadows and graffiti. The interior was filled with minimal/tech house, old warehouse type things and loads of German people who really wanted to get fucked; everyone seemed really cool.



I want to go back, so this must mean I liked it.