A Day Later in Berlin

Thus spake I: "It's like a more modern Vienna, or a cleaner Manhattan."
After last night's post we took a look at our choices of bedding: three bunks in the dorm and a double in a single room. Tim, the grandest man in the hostel business, naturally assumed two of us would take the single. We just left it to David, and we started out on a rabid dinner quest. In these phases of hunger we didn't have much curiosity about Berlin's streets as much as its restaurants. We walked by about half a dozen in the first two blocks-chinese, falafel, italian, pubs, kebab and thai- read all the menus and said we liked them. We settled on kebab. Always a good bet. We noticed here that for all the non-German speakers, communication in English is nearly always possible, and a universal common point.
After dinner we compared distances to various places from the comfort of the Oscar Wilde Pub (they've got Kilkenny Ale). They were playing the Beatles. We looked at maps but couldn't decide so we just went outside and walked for a while. Here most of the buildings are gray or steel colored and have been recently rebuilt. As we are in the former East Berlin there is communist architecture. 90% of Berlin was destroyed by 1945. So while there is a nighborhood with grand columns and old structures, all of them have been patched, renovated, and sometimes completely rebuilt (there is a tax break for building anew in the old neo-classical style). Sometimes in the middle of a block is an empty plot of land. These are fenced and overgrown with weeds. Before long we passed an open hallway leading to colors and thumping music and bottles clinking (basically every other door front in Berlin). We entered in and found an large "terrain vague" that had manifested a beach party. Several bars and music entertained a large crowd milling about and sitting in chairs or on wide metal sculptures. We enjoyed this scene for some time and got to talking to Daniel from Sarah Lawrence and his friend Rachel from, ummm, I think it might have been Harvard. Rachel was a German for her first fourteen years and an American for the last four. She spoke great Enlgish and knew tons of people. Eventually we decided to check out the big building that formed the aforementioned hallway. It was tall and had staircases with glass walls. As we got closer and then inside we saw that it was entirely covered with graffiti, There is a lot of this here; I think it isn't considered vandalism but modern expression, The place looked like a level in a videogame. Several floors hosted an art exhibit. On the top floor was the Sky Bar, a balcony overlooking the beach and its waves of traffic.
Here many of the taxis are Mercedes. There are many many cyclers, and many pretty ladies on bikes, though unfortunately none of them have required any fixing (the bikes I mean). The bike riders ride the streets and stop at red lights. Many tram lines run down the middles of the street. If you step on a rail you can sometimes feel it vibrating and you turn your head just in time to see the red cars, connected to wires overhead. They dingle a bell at you. The crosswalks are marked with a red and green soviet guy. On the streets there are many people kissing, especially under the trees; others are talking quietly or just holding hands. Streetlamps, trees, bikes, couples and tables and chairs make walking require attention. When I look down at the pavement it looks like Paris except these stones are smaller and sharper, less worn smooth. It got a bit cooler in the evening and we eagerly jumped at the chance to change up our sweaty paraphanalia,
This morning we got up early, got a ritzy breakfast across the street (Diana Krall is often heard in Europe, as is that other young woman who won all those grammys some years back). Then at 10:25 a person came by our hostel to pick us up, along with some other dudes. We walked and picked up another hostel load and met up with a big group at Brandenburg. This was where our free walking tour of Berlin left off from. We were in a group of about thirty with a 20 something British tourguide (Dave). He knew details and shit on Berlin in dumb amounts. The tour last several hours and ended on Museum's Island at three. Very informative and compelling. We tipped him and walked off into the BerlinDom, a huge Catholic Church with a great dome and two smaller ones on either side. The edifice sits at the tip of the island near both arms of the River Spree, and faces the Lust Gardens, a wide lawn with a fountain at the center and people playing volleyball and the digeridoo. The Dom itself was grand and we climbed up to the coppola balcony for a panoramic view. Then we ambled down the river a bit and into the Pergammon museum, which had dank sculpture and reconstructed structures from Ancient Greece, Babylonia and Turkey. An excellent "talking tour" told the stories of the battle between gods and giants while we followed the stone frieze's visual perspective. We got lost looking around and had to go searching for Rob, we got our backpacks at the free baggage check and bounced. It was officially afternoon now and some of us were in the mood for an afternoon chill sesh. Rob, David and Charlie were gonna stay up until 1 to go buy Harry Potter 7 at a big book store. I'm already reading a book so I'll wait. They decided to nap in a park and I went to do some laundry.
I had run out of clean shit so I was commando and in an old tshirt. This is managable with good reasoning but I need easy decisions. Back at the hostel I gathered the shit and asked a girl where the nearst- fuck it that's really not that interesting. The washing machines tumble and hiss here too. There was a a cafe adjoining the business. Here as you walk down past shops you here a lot of Slavic and other eastern languages, and Arabic and Spanish. All are clean and have clean bathrooms, though some require 5 or 10 cents for use. Children play on the street. Some are dark skinned and others are pale and blond. Many are barefoot. I'm trying to think of Berlin details but I don't know how good a picture I'm painting. I sat outside at the laundromat/cafe's tables and read, listened to music, and dozed.
When I got back to the hostel I found Dvaid Rob and Charlie cooking pasta in the hostel's kitchen. They were counting down the minutes until 1 AM. It was about 8:30. After dinner we cleaned up, invoking the roles of washer, dryer, passer, and putter-awayer. We went and took a walk around Torstrasse and Novalistrasse and talked. We went to sit in Oscar Wilde's to kill time. They didn't have Beatles tonight but a good rugby game on the tube. I say good out of coolness but I still haven't got a clue as to how it goes down, just they wear no pads and re psychos. At around 11 we proceeded to the large book store (akin to Fnac in France or Barnes and Nobles) for what we had heard would be a Harry Potter party. We expected people dressed up but there were only people waiting in line. We wandered the floors of the store trying to suggest a book for Rob but he didn't want to spend more than what he had to to get HP7. David and Charlie got on line (queue) and Rob and I went on a coffe run, in the process of which I inhaled a shwarma. Then I walked back here while the others stood on line.
The streets in our neighboorhood are wide and the sidewalks are wide, too. People ride bikes in suits and women in heels or snazzy dress. There is much snazzy dress. There are also many British people, and people walking in and out of places and to other places. It sort of looks the same as in daylight but it's louder.
At this point I don't know what else I can say. The guys got back with their books and are reading them in the kitchen.
Goodnight, old computer
Danny