hello again! Sorry for the delay on updating this thing, but I was traveling in a group for the last week and obviously had much less alone/down time because we were so busy living our very best lives.
On Saturday, we touched down in Tegel Airport in Berlin after I sat next to THE Marcus Butler on the plane. Right away there was a little bit of not so much of a culture shock but more of a language shock, as I realized it's the first time I've been somewhere where I couldn't understand the language. My previous abroad experiences have only been in Spanish-speaking countries lol. So even as we got our passports stamped, I was already weirded out by my dependence on root words and symbols to comprehend the German signs.
We got through the airport in no more than 15-20 minutes and it was eerily quiet to the point where we assumed this must not be the main Berlin airport (it was, and this weird quietness after sunset continued throughout my time in Europe). We were adamant on taking public transit, not a taxi, to our friend's apartment in the Prakow area of town and so we tugged our big suitcases along on the public bus and tram, both very convenient means of transit. Europe public transportation is freaking awesome, but as it turns out it's like technically privately owned so maybe I just need to refine my definition?
Anyways, right away we settled in and went to Two Fellas Brewery, a "Wisconsin-themed" bar according to our friend. We got pizza and kombucha (iykyk) because we were low-key starving and gearing up for a long, long night. Little did we know when we woke up that morning that we wouldn't be falling asleep for another 24 hours because Berlin is the capital of European clubbing.
And so the night began, first by heading to a 24-hour market which is on every street corner, and getting a vodka-mate aka the amazing carbonated version of yerba mate sold in Germany, except you mix in a shot per the name. The perfect mix of energy and alcohol and part of the quintessential Berlin culture. We met up with some friends and then didn't even show up to Soda Club until 12:30 AM.
This first club was lit, with SIX different dance floors all with different music themes, including a mix of 90s pop, German pop, and the Berlin trademark, techno. We were energized for a good three hours of dancing and hopping from dance floor to dance floor made it a super fun, easy intro to what was to happen next.
We left Soda Club and our friends to get a snack/ second dinner at 4 AM. Just like the markets, döner shops are on every street corner, which is when they cook lamb on a spinning cylinder and shave it off in a delicious Turkish bread with veggies. Or if you're vegetarian like me, they also can do falafels and fries instead! Did I mention that all this food is cheap beyond belief! We sat on the city street in the cold and witnessed a fight go down between two German teens which entertained us as we ate.
The real goal of the night was to go to Tresor, one of the most iconic clubs, where people are iconically turned away by the bouncers because they aren't wearing the implied black uniform or are too American or they don't looked "depressed" enough. I guess it was just a chill night because we got in no problem, and this place was absolutely wild. Techno was blasted in a warehouse converted into a club. The fog machines went off every two minutes so you weren't sure if it was weed, cigarettes, or fog that you were inhaling. I think I was one of the few individuals in the building not on some kind of trippy drug, because drugs are basically what you would need to stay up to 7 or 8 AM like we eventually ended up doing.
I apologize for the lack of pictures as proof of our clubbing, but that's just how exclusive it is: as much as they care to check your ID at the door, there is a dedicated worker that puts a black sticker on the front camera and camera of your phone so you don't take any videos or photos. You really have to see it to believe it and it adds to the whole experience. Never forget the man who asked every one of us in the club... where are you FROM?
The goal was to go for a proper night of clubbing and leave at 7AM, and we did just that. I probably couldn't have bobbed my head for another minute without falling asleep at that point. The sun rises really late so we never even saw the light between going out and going to bed that next morning. We slept the full day with no regrets and woke up in time for dinner the next day and a couple of pubs suggested by the locals. Nothing in Berlin can just be normal so even these pubs were pretty quirky. Tresor wiped us out so hard we had no problem falling asleep Sunday night at a normal hour, even after waking up at 4PM that day. And that was the first 24 hours we spent in Berlin.
