Berlin 27/7

Würzburg to Berlin 27/7 – A&O Hostel

I had to check out at 11, then went and had a kebab for breakfast and wondered around town. Had some lunch with Anne before catching a delayed train to Berlin.

I arrived in Berlin and walked across the road to A&O hostel, which seemed to be a family hostel as there were kids and people of all ages.

I met some American guys at the bar and had pizza with them, then Nadja met up with us and took me to hers to met her friends and we all went out to the Berghain. The line was huge, easily 100m long at the opening time of 12am, we put on a look of ‘my dog just died’ to seem cold and not phased by the club or queue.

And somehow managed to pass the judgment of ‘Pimp Kernel Sanders’, a guy with a face tattoo like Mike Tyson, red leather jacket, turned up jeans, and heaps of silver blinging chains and jewelry, who stroked his beard and rubbed his ear as he glanced you up and down.

Once we got in past the pat down by security and upstairs to the first floor we were greeted by a raging dance floor of people and hard electro beats. Amongst the sea of people that quickly parted, revealed a sweaty guy with a shaved head. Wearing nothing but runners and wang on him to his knees, dancing by himself having the time of his life.

Following that rude awakening to this club, there were 5 booths in which people could have sex in… whether or not they chose to close the door or not, which was a bit of a laugh, until my friend mentioned there was a guy chained up naked with two guys lined up behind him.
Another thing making this club stand out from anything else I had ever been to, was the side bar. Its bench top was a horizontal display-case containing a man-train of naked transparent amber coloured figurines.

We all taxied back around 4am, with most of them planning to return the following night.

Berlin 28/7 - A&O hostel

I was hung-over all day, and didn’t move much until the afternoon. I finally got up and ate pizza, again, then walked down to a bar/beach club by myself and after a refreshing beer I took a taxi to the Berghain to meet up with Nadja and the boys.
Out of nowhere a random girl, Loredanna Hibbard, recognised me at the bar (which was funny considering I had actually never met her) so we had a quick chat of our travel plans and how random it was to bump into each other on the other side of the world, when we never have back home via our Facebook mutual friends.

I wandered around for a bit, trying to find the other guys, unfortunately walking into the side bar where there were some couches and two naked guys in corner going ‘paper, scissors, rock’ on each other. I ran out back to the main dance floor and found the others; they weren’t fazed by my story as we had all seen plenty each.

We were there until close 730am.

Berlin Wombat 29/7 Wombat hostel 6 bed dorm

Wandered around with some random German guys and a girl from Israel all leaving the Berghain, we tried to get into Kalter Holzig (apparently a pretty cool day club) but failed as its was a VIP event (at 8am?). I bailed and went back to A&O hostel and checked out, then taxied to Wombat hostel on about 1.5hrs sleep. Ryan arrived in a cab an hour later so I yelled out to him from my hostel window and helped him check in.

We caught up for a bit at the bar upstairs, and met some Aussies so we drank and played pool all night.

We went out front with the majority of our hostel people, chatting and joking around, when all of a suddenly a young German kid starts screaming at us and cussing at one of the other backpackers. So we all laughed and advised him to piss off and drop it, but he decided to smash a glass bottle and threaten us with it.

When he was crouching down, distracted by chatting to someone, I walked up and booted the broken bottle out of his hand. He sprung up, to about just under my nose, so I drilled my index finger into his chest I gave him a fierce piece of my mind. His friend quickly intervened and they backed down.

Got back to my room and met Ewen, this young and very strange UK kid, and Hannah an Aussie from Perth.

Berlin 30/7 Wombat hostel 6 bed dorm

Woke up a little hung-over booked another night, and Ryan moved into my room. Made our way down to Checkpoint Charlie where it started to rain really heavily, and when it finally let up we wandered over to the Topography of terror and an amazing Chocolate store.

Using my map and compass I navigated Ryan, Ewen and myself to the Statue of Victory, then took the train back and had Vietnamese with the Aussie girls, Molly, Jess, Lisa and Maeve. Had some 9% JD’s for pre-drinks then went and played pool back at the hostel until the bar closed.

Berlin 31/7 Wombat hostel 6 bed dorm

We went caught a taxi to the East Wall exhibition and met the girls there after getting out at a roadblock and a wrong turn. After walking along the art covered wall, we all hopped on a tour bus, which told us nothing about the war or sights, but instead how much glass is on top of the main train station, and how many trees the city had.

We eventually got to the Fuehrer bunker, and Jew memorial. Then piled into two cabs and headed back to our hostel to have Vietnamese again for dinner, followed by drinks and a few rounds of pool.