It’s a bit noisy.
26th June, 2008.
As I sit here at my kezboard, I can hear wild screaming and explosions in the street. No, it’s not because the Germans are at it again nor because I have moved to a kinky part of Europe. Actually, the latter is true, but it’s still not the reason that I can hear screams.
This little piece of graffiti on part of The Wall sums it up for me.
The Europe Cup is on and Germany is playing Turkey. I was told today that in this city (this city being Berlin), almost 1 million of the 4 million population are from Turkey. No matter who loses, there will be riots in the streets tonight. About 500,000 are expected to be gathered in the centre of town watching the game on large screens.
We’ve been here in Berlin for almost 3 days now. We travelled by train from Amsterdam on Tuesday. Not the real fast train though – this one only tops out at about 200km/h. The first thing we noticed on arrival here was the sudden increase in the b/m2 (blondes per square metre). The second thing we noticed of course, was the smell of raw sewage. Oh well, the city that looks so pretty probably doesn’t deserve to smell nice too.
After checking into our apartment, we went out and explored a little. We jumped onto one of those open topped tourist buses that allow you to get on and off as you like. The highlight for me would have to be the Check Point Charlie Museum. Even though I’ve been there before it didn’t fail to raise an emotional response to me. After so many years of living in such an oppressive environment, the joy expressed when the wall finally came down would have been amazing. As one quote stated, “we cried until our faces were sore”.
Naturally, we had a look at a bar or two. We are about a block away from the Connection nightclub and there is an interesting bar called “Woof” next door to our building. Bailey checked it out last night. He was impressed.
You will all be pleased to know that I’m drinking spirits again. Even though they are still 6 euro each, they are free poured. Our first was probably about 4 nips so Bailey tipped the bar man. After that he got even more generous. Once again, rancid after just 3 drinks.
Sam, Rocky and Bailey at the Victory Column.
It\s very much summer here. Yesterday was sunny and early 30′s. Today was still warm but cloudy and a bit muggy. That might just be because of the amount of time we spent in a laundry, trying to freshen up our clothes.
What else can I tell you? Not a lot of shopping done yet. There are quite a few gay tourists in town already for this weekends CSD parade. Last night was a successful night out at the bars.
The explosions appear to be getting closer.
That\s about it I guess. I am hearing a little more screaming now, and there are quite a few police sirens coming into the mix.
I just ducked downstairs. Judging by the fact that most of the cars driving past blowing their horns have people hanging out the windows flying flags. I guess that Germany won he game.
P.S. Forgive typing errors. Not only is this a German keyboard and all the letters are mixed up, much of the printing on the key caps has worn off. It took me half an hour of trial and error to find the M.