Berlin (Day 5 through Day 8)
On Saturday, December 30th, Pete, Lindsay, Eryn and I rolled out of K-town and headed north on the autobahn toward Berlin for the New Year’s weekend. I had never been up to Berlin before, but was certainly pumped to go, having heard nothing but rave reviews in the past. The par-tay at the Brandenburg Gate was one of the world hot spots for such festivities, and the lure of “doing” New Year’s on such a world level was pretty enticing and something I had never done before. (Nor, should I say, was my enthusiasm lessened by the prospect of seeing endless Funboys on a party holiday in a city also known as the “gay capitol of Europe”. Game on!)
The Highlights:
-We spent Saturday the 30th traveling up to Berlin by car. Not a bad trip - about 6 hours for 400 miles and that’s with multiple stops. After a smooth ride in Lindsay’s BMW, we rolled in to town, checked into our place, and then walked around the local area. We had a few drinks at a nearby bar, and then tracked down a Thai/Chinese place and had some pretty good food. (One of the great things about Berlin is the fact that is truly an international city - and hence one isn’t relegated to eat only German food. German food, while good in small doses or for novelty purposes, becomes tiresome and heavy after multiple, frequent servings. Other than bratwurst, which you certainly couldn’t eat every day, almost all German food consists of some form of meat which is pounded flat, breaded, and fried. It is HEAVY, immobilizing cuisine. But in Berlin we had Asian, Spanish, and French fare, all of which was up to snuff and offered a pleasant variety.) After dinner we hit up another bar, this one rather smoky, had a few more drinks, and then went back to call it a night.
Eryn gets Artsy in a bar
Pete gets....Artsier
Idiots at the Restaurant
Eryn slays Lindsay
-Our accommodations for the trip provided both a good staging area (for a good price) and also some classic German entertainment. We stayed at a smallish “Pension” in western Berlin, which turned out to be a pretty cool place in a neat neighborhood. And surprisingly, two of the three “inn keeps” at this place were incredibly friendly, sociable, and helpful people, doing much by themselves to tarnish my amusing mental image of the average German stranger as a blunt, scowling, stand-off-ish type with minimal patience and quick to frown. These two main people who ran this place were seemingly always at the ready with maps, food ideas, polyester pillows (some of us have down allergies), and even a few spontaneous smiles. They really did make our stay quite pleasant.
That said, there was another, THIRD inn keep who was much more the typical German and a source of much amusement for our group. She really had it out for Lindsay, especially, and there were several encounters which had us reeling with laughter. For one thing, the lady felt it important to remind Lindsay ad nauseum about the importance of closing the outer, public door to the area where Lindsay’s room was. (This door, which required a key to open, was used by many to get to a wing of the hotel where individual room doors were then accessed.) Lindsay would leave the outer door open from time to time so that Pete, Eryn, and I could get to her room unabated when we were meeting up before meals and such. One time, this lady was snooping around and noticed Lindsay had left the door open. The following conversation ensued:
Inn Keep: (stone faced) “You must keep ‘zis door closed.”
Lindsay: “Ok, sorry. No problem.”
Inn Keep: “Zis door is used by many to get in here. You must keep it closed.”
Lindsay: “OK, I understand. I’ll keep it closed.”
Inn Keep: “If you leave it open, anybody can come in.”
Lindsay: “Right. I got it. The door should stay closed.”
Inn Keep: “You must keep it closed.”
Lindsay: “Ummm. OK.”
This conversation continued on for about four more lines of similar dialogue. Classic.
But that story aside, this lady’s best work came on New Year’s morning at breakfast. Everybody got up hung-over (except maybe Eryn), and we stumbled dizzily downstairs with our headaches after not enough sleep to eat the solid if not spectacular hotel breakfast buffet. Pete, Eryn, and I got downstairs first. Later, we were joined by Lindsay who took a seat at the not-yet-cleaned table next to us. BIG mistake. With one look followed by a quick frown, the sour third inn keep came scuttling over as Lindsay was settling into her seat. She looks at Lindsay, looks at the dirty table, looks back at Lindsay, (probably recalling that this is the same chick who had so blatantly left the outer door open) and coldly declared in incredulous fashion:
“You have sat at a table that has NOT been cleaned...”
Now, this seems like a simple enough line of dialogue. The information in the statement is both obvious and true. What can not be brought to bear in the printing of this line, however, is the tone in which it was spoken. The accented English was so coolly declarative, containing more than a hint of unspoken German World War II era menace, as if she were channeling Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark in the scene where he played with Marion Ravenwood's fire at the bar in the Himalayas. The pause at the end of the line was the best - it hung there as if it were placed, deliberately, to give one time to reflect on the pure error of breaking the rules , of sitting at this unclean and therefore unavailable table, its silence inferring “This act you have committed is, of course, against the rules. When the rules are broken, there are punishments. Without punishments, society cannot exist. When ANY rule is broken, the punishment shall be severe. And therefore, of course, the punishment for this crime of sitting at this table in this fashion....is DEATH.”
Then, as the pause ends, one could imagine the steely calm of the lady’s voice giving way to bubbling-over vengeance as she screams the hypothetical sentence for the crime at the top of her lungs with zealous German fervor. (Now in reality, the lady simply spoke this line coldly to Lindsay, gave a disapproving look, and then walked away to get some things to clean up the table with. But WE took it much further, absolutely loving the German-ness of this lady’s no-nonsense attitude and her delivery, and of course thinking of and speaking the multiple possible endings to her pause as if she were some Nazi uber-frau.)
Just as the lady got out of earshot, Eryn was the first to capitalize and sarcastically finished the line with an imitation of her voice - a screaming decree of...”FIRING SQUAD!” in mock top-of-the-lungs fashion. Then we all lost it and took turns imitating the voice and ending that pause with various screaming punishments. (“You have sat a table that has NOT been cleaned....GUARDS! MACH SCHNELL!”) Etc.
Whether or not the last couple of paragraphs convey it - the whole surreal/stereotypical encounter was absolutely classic and hilarious. Totally jump started me out of my hang-over. We were all in stitches for at least 10 minutes and it easily one of the highlights of the trip with many repeated quotings.
-On New Year’s Eve itself we started the day by walking and busing all around Berlin. Sightseeing highlights included a bombed out World War II Era church as well all sorts of other things from enormous government buildings to medieval “doms”, as well as the various towers and museums that make up central Berlin. Eventually, we ended up over at Checkpoint Charlie near the old Berlin Wall (apparently its been torn down now), walking amidst its remnants and informative display pieces. The centerpiece and focal point of Checkpoint Charlie is a large billboard with a US Soldier staring out one side (toward the East) and a USSR soldier on the opposite face (staring West), symbolizing of course the entire cold war conflict. We also walked along the remnants of the old wall itself, and finally toured the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, which though poorly organized and crowded, was a nevertheless enjoyable look at the history of the wall as well as the multiple escape attempts made by East Berliners trying to “get West”. Some of the attempts at escape were rather heroic and ingenious. Pretty cool stuff and all very well documented, AND yet another example of a prominent European city having a real sense of history about it - which is one of the most enjoyable things to me about traveling around this continent. For some reason I couldn’t stop quoting JFK’s famous “Ich Bin Berliner” line in my head - and occasionally aloud in full Mayor Quimby voice as well. Eryn and I had also been playing the cold-war based board game Twilight Struggle (his X-mas gift to me) prior to the trip, so the visit to this specific area was even more fascinating.
We've seen this pose all around the world now
Schooling the Wall
Eryn Nerds it up at Checkpoint Charlie (Don't Ask)
-After our day on the town it was time to prepare for New Year’s Eve itself. We headed back to the hotel and Eryn and I decided to take a quick nap to rest up while Pete, Lindsay, and new compatriots Jeanie (friend of Pete’s from work) and Kenrick (Jeanie’s friend) began drinking and getting ready. When I woke up, I perhaps foolishly decided I had to “catch up” on drinking. So without pause I dove into a nearby bottle of Jack Daniels and before I knew it I had done about 3-4 shots worth of Jack in the form of Jack and Coke before we even hit dinner. Fairly buzzed, we all started getting dressed up and ready for dinner. The highlight of the wardrobe selections was without a doubt the disco-funk-da-fied get up that Pete had brought with him, which provided us (and the people we encountered) ceaseless entertainment from the beginning of the night to the end.
Pete out-discos Discostup
We had dinner at Spanish Tapas place near our hotel which was excellent. And with dinner came a couple of bottles of wine as well as loud and entertaining conversation. Everybody was in a good mood and the entire evening just picked up steam from there. Eryn was sloshed like the rest of us (slurring it up Portland-style) and nobody should let him tell them different. After dinner, we realized we were running behind and we had to make our way down to the infamous Brandenburg Gate so we hopped into a couple of cabs and descended on the mecca of the Berlin New Year’s Eve celebration.
The amount of people was staggering, but so was the space, so it wasn’t until we got relatively close did everything feel “tight”. After walking a while, we were routed around a series of ropes on the outer edge of this park and we slowly made our way in. Nearer to the Gate but still in the park, Pete scampered off into the woods on some drunken logic to look for a “short-cut” but only managed to cut his face on a branch. It was the first of many alcohol-related idiotic-but-funny incidents of the night.
When we finally got into the “main” area, which was vast, we all decided we needed a drink and headed towards the nearest open bar. This was about 11:20 pm or so by now, and the crowd, the music, and the energy were in full throat. Unfortunately for us, there were about four bartenders trying to serve about 500 people beer, and the line movement was slow to say the least. We actually sat at the bar, awaiting our drinks for at least 30 minutes and sad to say, actually spent New Year’s IN LINE. Not a real big deal, though, as we were still outside in the masses - we just happened to be under the tarp which covered this outside bar and hence our views of the fireworks were sub-par. When the magic moment came, though, we simply turned toward the central area, hugged one another, and watched the show, which consisted of hundreds of fireworks and dancing, celebrating people as far as the eye could see. And then, around 12:10 am or so, we finally got our drinks.
The overall scene on New Year’s at the gate is hard to describe, and certainly this challenge is intensified because I was pretty drunk at the time (and that’s no lie). But if nothing else it was fun, just UTTERLY fun. People were going nuts, everybody was happy. People were dancing, clapping, and laughing in a series of unorganized groups that stretched for miles in the middle of the city. Off in the far distance, we could just make out the gate (we unfortunately couldn’t get close until after the crowd started to disperse a little after midnight hit). We were going to try to hook up with Irv Cohen and his wife for the actual New Year’s, but the crowds made this impossible and he ended up seeing the fireworks from about 100 meters away from the gate. There were loud speakers everywhere, which alternated between playing music and blaring the voice of some uber-zealous German DJ guy trying to fire the crowd up. Eryn and I kept exchanging “holy shit” glances every time this guy’s high energy, “ARE YOU READY TO PARTY?!!?” (but in German) type voice screamed something. His tone was clearly happy, however the loud, harsh German voice spoken in a “rally” type of tone certainly evoked memories of a slightly different German guy who was ALSO prone to speak loud, harsh German in a “rally” type of tone - a quite different sort of rally, however. Overall the effect of this “DJ Hitler” was quite amusing and had us busting up and shaking our heads every time he screamed something. (Although if he had ended any phrase with “SIEG HEIL!” or something similar, I may have sobered up instantaneously. Thankfully, he didn’t.)
As I’ve mentioned before, New Year’s in Germany is a firework holiday. (I guess they have no fourth of July and are jealous of our freedom.) Fireworks are fine but having just come back from mortar-land, Iraq, I found that loud explosions in my immediate area weren’t exactly the best thing in the world for my sense of calm. I definitely jumped a bit, and certainly more at the bass-heavy blasts (which sound more like real mortars), but I was proud in that I didn’t assume the fetal position on the ground or scream for everyone to find cover and get down, get down...for the love of Jesus just get down...
OK, I’m back.
So in the next half hour after midnight, the crowd slowly started to spread about a bit and we found that we could make our way as a group up the main walk-platz towards the gate. In between DJ Hitler’s rantings, they were still playing music, and if a song we liked came on we’d stop and start dancing around - again everyone was having an absolute blast - I certainly was. Some of the best moments of the night came from this period of time, interestingly coinciding with the time period when I was more or less at my functionally drunkest. There were many memorable quotes, but the most lovable perhaps was my non-stop screaming repetitions of “DAS IST NEW YEAR’S!” and “DAS IST BERLIN!” which I helpfully shouted into people’s faces every 10 seconds or so just in case anyone around me: a) forgot which holiday we were celebrating, or b) forgot which city we were in.
And at one particular moment, perhaps THEE highlight of the night occurred. The stars must have aligned, for we found ourselves all in a circle, arms around each other’s shoulders, and for no good reason we jumped up and down for several minutes simply chanting, “VUN-DER-BAR! VUN-DER-BAR!” (German for “wonderful”) over and over again at the top of our lungs. We must have looked like hapless idiots to those nearby - especially to anyone who might be German. But, at the time, looking back now, it seemed SO right to jump and chant that I can’t come to grips with the notion that anything, at any other time, in the history of the world, could ever have felt MORE right - period. As we talked about all of this stuff the next day we just shook our hungover heads and laughed - I smile just thinking about it. What a blast. Eryn made the astute observation that to those Germans around us doing this it must have been the equivalent of being in Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve and stumbling upon some drunken Euros jumping in a circle and shouting “SUP-ER COOL!” “SUP-ER COOL!” over and over again for no particularly discernible reason.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Eryn managed to catch some of these amazing snippets on video tape, and I’m sure they will be available for viewing soon over at his website, and possibly over here as well. Perhaps the biggest VIDEO highlight is Pete and I dancing around to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” The video clip Eryn has is awesome, revealing an obviously drunken Pete and an obviously drunken me facing each other while Pete has his arms outstretched, gripping his gold-studded scarf, which is wrapped around my shoulders. He appears to be singing to me while shimmying the scarf back and forth as I just laugh and giggle in immeasurable ecstasy. A description just doesn’t do this one justice - it MUST be seen. (And once more Eryn’s insistence on bringing the video camera ensures I will never be able to run for any sort of elected office - ever....)
After our little dance session, we kept walking up to the gate, and then around some more, and then, a few hours later, it was time to head back. It apparently took us a long-ass time to get back to our hotel, but luckily in my drunken stupor I don’t remember a whole lot of it - I just sort of tagged along with the group and timed seemed to fly by. (Why everyone decided to follow drunken Pete’s lead I have no idea.)
Ultimately, what I do remember is that THIS New Year’s Eve was just unbelievably fun. Good group, good crowd, good moods, great time. Even the hangover the next morning couldn’t dampen the smiles as I recalled the images and sounds from the night before. This was my best New Year’s in a long, long time. Possibly Ever? Well, at least since the millenium New Year’s - for now it remains up for debate.
Guess who's been drinking...
Madness
Jeanie and Kenrick (and Lindsay)
Pete and E
- On New Year’s Day, Monday, after experiencing our hilarious breakfast encounter with the dour third inn-keep, we lounged around a bit for the morning, nursing our hangovers until about 2 pm or so. Then Jeanie and Kenrick took off out of town and Lindsay, Pete, E and I set about seeing the rest of Berlin. Interestingly enough, we headed back over to the Brandenburg Gate - the scene of the crime - this time to revel in its glory during the day time. The Gate comes complete with its own history, of course, which Pete read to us from the guidebook while Eryn and I took pictures. From the Gate we marched through several plazas of firework remnants down to the Reichstag, which is the “Capitol” building equivalent for the German government. We waited in line to go up to the top of it, and while we did that, it started raining which made things interesting, or should I say less fun. Still despite the hangovers and cold rain, spirits remained high and the four of us had a good day talking, laughing, and for some reason constantly imitating the chicken dance from Arrested Development.
Brandenburg Gate
Lindsay and E in front of the Reichstag
Berlin by night from the top of the 'Stag
That night we ate dinner at the French Restaurant in the Ritz Carlton and afterwards we toured around old East Berlin a little bit, walking off the dinner and seeing some of the eclectic neighborhoods. We had a few more drinks that night and on the next day we did a little more sightseeing and then headed back. Our trip home took a lot longer because of mega-traffic, but we still had a good time, and Lindsay subjected us to her bottomless hip-hop and dance music collection, which was both good and bad...
Overall, Berlin was awesome. A great time in a great city. I definitely want to go back again and would also like to just experience it on a non-holiday weekend. I would have liked to have seen the Holocaust Memorial and some of the world-class museums which we weren’t able to get to. But still, just a phenomenal place. It might just be my favorite European city at this point. I’ll definitely be heading back in the near future.
(Up next, When Eryn Attacks, Part 3 - “Worms, Euro Go Karts, and Munich!”)
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