The Berghain: A Review

If any city knows how to party, its Berlin. I haven't been everywhere, but so far- Germany contains the craziest club heads of the 12 countries I've visited. A certain friend of ours, I won't name any names, told Lisa and I that Watergate was the best club in Berlin.. she didn't get in. This is shocking because she's one of the most beautiful girls I know; bouncers in Chicago let her into clubs immediately, even when there is a line of 50+ people. Anyways, we went to Watergate and it was incredible but not worth blogging about. The night we went, we kept hearing about The Berghain. Some quotes from the Germans:

"The Berghain is the craziest club you will ever go to. You will wait in line for 3 hours to get in, and it will be worth it!"

"When you go to the Berghain, they will not let you in in a dress. You must wear a man's shirt and jeans that DO NOT EVEN FIT YOU!"

It was our last night in Berlin, we were leaving the next morning at about 8am and decided we didn't need (and couldn't really afford) a room for the night. We moved our belongings to the storage room at our hostel, got ready in the closet, and took off for the night. We got to the Bergahain before it opened and joined the line of at least 200 people. The only point of reference for a line like this is Raging Bull at 6 Flags on a Saturday afternoon in July. When I saw this, I was not happy. Germany at 11pm in May is still really cold and I saw at least 60% of club-goers getting denied entry into this place. After waiting for about 2 hours, I was barely speaking to Lisa for making me wait in this line for a club we definitely weren't getting into. I have no idea how they chose who was allowed in, but I didn't actually believe we were cool enough to make the cut. When we got to the front of the line at about 1am, the bouncer shockingly let us in- even though both of our jeans fit us. We were inspected to nothing short of a full-cavity search. No cameras, camera phones, etc. were allowed but I saw lots of people doing cocaine in the bathroom so I imagine that drugs are not what they were searching for.

The club is like a gigantic warehouse, 2-stories and several bars. There are cubby-holes where you can see gay strangers having sex, the only piece of art in the entire place was a giant photograph of a man's butthole, people are half naked and grinding in ways I've never seen, and nobody is phased by any of this. This is how I imagine Lady Gaga partying. The Berghain's theme song should be "Scheisse" off her latest CD.

We danced until 6am. I met a lot of interesting people, saw at least 15 people doing cocaine off of various bathroom surfaces, and left my gum under a stool so that a piece of me will always be at the craziest place I have ever been to. When we left at 6am, it was light out and there was still a line of party-goers hoping the bouncer would let them in. We got a schawarma and hopped in a taxi to the airport.

I will never go to the Berghain again. I'm still in amazement that such a place exists. As hard as I try to describe it- I don't think you will ever understand unless you go yourself. Nothing particularly exciting happened to me while I was there; I danced, had a few drinks, and talked to Germans but I will never, ever forget it- that is the magnitude of this place. It was one of the most fun nights of my life and I am so glad that it happened, but I'm still surprised those bouncers let me in because I really didn't fit in there. I DO suggest that you try it. When you go to Berlin, it is worth the 2 hour wait, its worth seeing things that made you uncomfortable, and its worth being hungover on your flight to Ireland. Just hope the bouncer likes you.


Note: While I am open-minded and very accepting of other peoples' lifestyles, I do not and never have done a drug in my life. I don't condone it, nor do I condone public sex. That is not the point of this story- I, nor do you, need those things to have a great time and experience really interesting, fun things.

The Stalker of Sacre Coure

At the end of our trip, Lisa and I rented an apartment in Paris for a month. It was a tiny studio in Mont Marte with a living room that transformed into a bedroom when you lowered the bed from the ceiling and a schawarma stand conveniently located next door. Mont Marte is famous for the Sacre Coeur Basilica, which is a beautiful church on top of a giant hill with a view of the entire city.

One day, Lisa had a date with the tall, dark, and French Tibo; as I've mentioned before, she is an international lover. I didn't want to stay cooped up in our apartment all day so I took my journal and walked to the Sacre Coeur to write.

At the bottom of the hill, there are always dark men selling bracelets (the kind you braid when you're in 3rd grade), but mostly harassing female tourists. I am pretty outspoken and not the kind of person who likes to be touched, especially by dirty French peddlers, so I yelled at one of them not to touch me. At this point (and many other times throughout that trip), they began to call me an ugly, ugly, mean girl and telling me to watch out.

I continued walking, not caring all that much, when I noticed that a 50ish-year-old dark man was following me. I started walking faster, hoping I was wrong, but when I sat down at a bench, he sat down next to me. I smiled to be nice but got up and started walking away. A few steps later, he was continuing to follow me up the hill. At this point, I was convinced that the bracelet peddlers sent him to stalk and kill me so I ran up the rest of the hill and straight into the church. I figured I was safe in there. This man was clearly not Catholic and I couldn't imagine somebody continuing to stalk you in God's house, either way. I. WAS. WRONG. He found me while I was in the gift shop buying Simon a rosary. Then he found me praying in front of a statue of Jesus. I was terrified at this point and sat down next to a family for protection.

He sat down right next to my fake family and me. This is the point when I realized that he stunk like he hadn't showered in a year, ran around wearing used garbage bags on 90-degree days, and got skunked regularly.  Finally, I did exactly what I learned in my female self-defense seminar, I looked him straight in the eye and told him "Leave me alone, I don't want any problems". Apparently he skipped that day in English class because he started asking my name and where I live. I didn't know what to do at this point, I was trapped in a church between a family and the stinky stalker, I didn't have a phone and even if I did, I didn't know the number to the police in France... So I hopped over the pew and ran all the way home crying; only falling down the hill once.

I'm still alive, so I'm guessing he wasn't fast enough to follow me to my apartment, but I must say that this may have been the scariest day of my life.

40 Rue Condorcet

After our flight in from Bratislava, Lisa and I took a bus and then a cab to our apartment in Paris. While Lisa had been in Paris the previous summer, it was my first time and I was amazed at how beautiful the city was. Coming from a more modern city with tall metal and glass skyscrapers, I was in awe of the detail that went into each stone building. It took us over an hour to get there from the airport, but we finally arrived at our apartment at 40 Rue Condorcet. We were a little bit late so we were surprised that Alan, our new land lord, wasn't standing there waiting for us. Some time went by, I went down the street to the Kebab Stand to get some chips (they gave me french fries instead, I didn't understand this until I got to Australia and realized the rest of the English speaking world calls french fries chips) and a diet coke for Lisa and I to eat for dinner. We waited about 45 minutes before we really started freaking out. We weren't near any hotels (not that we could afford one anyways), we had no contacts in France, and Alan was not answering our urgent e-mails. It was getting late and we were going to have to join the homeless on the streets if Alan didn't show up soon. Finally, I asked Lisa if she had the contract we signed with Alan, hoping his phone number was on there. After rummaging through her bag, we found the paperwork but didn't know how to dial his number (calling people in other countries is much more difficult than it seems. There are so many numbers and you don't know which ones you do and do not have to dial; I had the same problem when I got to Australia). Lisa went back to the Kebab Stand to ask for help, but that didn't seem to get us anywhere. We had no idea what we were going to do, when we flipped to the next page of the contract which told us that our address was 48 Rue Condorcet, not 40 Rue Condorcet. So we made a mad dash down the block where Alan had been waiting for us for an hour and a half, right next to the Kebab Stand.