The last day was as last days of holidays always are, a mixture of sadness because you don't really want to go back to but also you have the feeling that you want to get home as quickly as possible, this is not going to be the case for me. I am quite hungover when I wake up. Dan has already shot off because his flight is earlier.
For breakfast Eileen takes us for an ice coffee and cakes bought from a cafe. We sit in the park chilling out for a bit but it starts thundering so we wander around some shops in the tropical conditions. Eileen wants to buy Madeleine and Jose something to thank them for their hospitality but I am completely skint so am unable to contribute.
Some bastard nicks my coat as I am getting on the coach.
Sleeping Dan and I head back to the airport but this time it is me that drops off, Dan tells me that he is feeling wide awake now. We have quite a long wait before our different planes which is a bit annoying when you haven't got the money to even buy a drink.
Dan heads back to Gatwick and I get on the plane to Stansted, a massive thunderstorm lands over the airport the minute I do, we are grounded for two hours before taking off. This isn't so much of a problem for me as I would only have to wait for my coach at the other end. Border patrol is stupid, I can't work out why it takes so long in the UK.
I think I have five quid on me but it turns out that it's only four so I regret buying a sandwich as it means that I will have to wait at New Street Station until six o'clock because I don't have enough change to get the early bus. I get home about half six.
Tuesday, August 06, 2013
Monday, August 05, 2013
Dresden
Wide Awake Dan tried to wake everyone up by making lots of noise but it didn't work so he wandered off on his own, a couple of hours later we stirred and went off in search of breakfast. We went into a little cafe and I had a meat thing which was quite tasty, Sleeping Dan and Joe ordered a ice coffee but the lady behind the counter said that she had no ice cream, they had cold coffee. We sat out in a back yard and watched very cheeky sparrows fly around our table.
Joe likes to pack light and was in dire need of some clean socks which luckily he found in a pound shop, unluckily he didn't look at the sizes and bought children's. Eileen took us along a scenic route into the old town jumping into a fountain along the way. We saw a cigarette factory that looked like the Kremlin, an opera building that people think is a brewery because of a TV ad, the palace and lots of other lovely recreated buildings destroyed during the Second World War. Dresden really is very pretty. We bump into Dan in the palace grounds and Eileen suggests that we go and have a look at the Frauenkirche which was rebuilt completely.
It is a very impressive building, the colours inside are very pastel which according to Eileen caused controversy when the building was reopened despite the fact that they were the same colours as the original church.
We sit down for a much needed pint outside a nightclub that Eileen says she is never going to go to. Refreshed we walk down the River Elbe towards the Brauhaus am Waldschlösschen where we are planning on eating. We stop off at the beer garden next to the ferry for a couple more beers. We get to the restaurant where Dan and I have some big steins which are really cheap. It is very pleasant sat out in the brahuaus garden. We order the days special which is pork knuckle with sauerkraut, it is extremely tasty and massive too.
Another beer and we wander back down the river towards the Neustadt fighting off clouds of tiny moths as we do so. Dresden is currently hosting a massive outdoor cinema and there are lots of people sitting in the river bank watching a film which I recognize from the music but am not sure what it is. We stop off once again for another beer before heading towards the anti-social corner where Eileen is meeting some friends.
Dan says he doesn't want to sit outside so he, Joe and me go off to find the METAL!!! bar, they don't have a great selection of beers or spirits and it is very hot and sweaty inside so we don't stay too long before going to the off licence and to buy some beer so we can all sit at the anti-social corner just like everyone else. The next thing I know I am pouring with sweat inside a nightclub drinking chilli cocktails then shortly afterwards we have been kicked out and are looking for a bar that is still open. Thankfully there aren't any and we go home, this is the first night that I have been to bed first, I am knackered, I sleep almost instantly.
Joe likes to pack light and was in dire need of some clean socks which luckily he found in a pound shop, unluckily he didn't look at the sizes and bought children's. Eileen took us along a scenic route into the old town jumping into a fountain along the way. We saw a cigarette factory that looked like the Kremlin, an opera building that people think is a brewery because of a TV ad, the palace and lots of other lovely recreated buildings destroyed during the Second World War. Dresden really is very pretty. We bump into Dan in the palace grounds and Eileen suggests that we go and have a look at the Frauenkirche which was rebuilt completely.
It is a very impressive building, the colours inside are very pastel which according to Eileen caused controversy when the building was reopened despite the fact that they were the same colours as the original church.
We sit down for a much needed pint outside a nightclub that Eileen says she is never going to go to. Refreshed we walk down the River Elbe towards the Brauhaus am Waldschlösschen where we are planning on eating. We stop off at the beer garden next to the ferry for a couple more beers. We get to the restaurant where Dan and I have some big steins which are really cheap. It is very pleasant sat out in the brahuaus garden. We order the days special which is pork knuckle with sauerkraut, it is extremely tasty and massive too.
Another beer and we wander back down the river towards the Neustadt fighting off clouds of tiny moths as we do so. Dresden is currently hosting a massive outdoor cinema and there are lots of people sitting in the river bank watching a film which I recognize from the music but am not sure what it is. We stop off once again for another beer before heading towards the anti-social corner where Eileen is meeting some friends.
Dan says he doesn't want to sit outside so he, Joe and me go off to find the METAL!!! bar, they don't have a great selection of beers or spirits and it is very hot and sweaty inside so we don't stay too long before going to the off licence and to buy some beer so we can all sit at the anti-social corner just like everyone else. The next thing I know I am pouring with sweat inside a nightclub drinking chilli cocktails then shortly afterwards we have been kicked out and are looking for a bar that is still open. Thankfully there aren't any and we go home, this is the first night that I have been to bed first, I am knackered, I sleep almost instantly.
Sunday, August 04, 2013
Templehof to Dresden
A day for not meeting people. We were a bit more lively this morning after not going too wild and arrange to meet Steffi in Templehof, this is like meeting somebody in Hyde Park and when you don't know exactly where they are it is completely impossible. It is a nice place to visit so we weren't too disappointed but it was a shame not to catch up with her.
We are travelling East to Dresden today so a large chunk of the day is taken up with that, we drink beer on the train and I amuse myself by poking Eileen. :)
My first impressions of Dresden are that it is a lot nicer than Coventry. We head towards Johannes' flat, dump our stuff and wander out for a beer in very nice bar where they are playing records that sound like Jesus and Mary Chain whilst old 60s french pop videos are on the telly. We get back to the flat about one and have a game of table football. Everyone except Johannes, Eileen and I go to bed, we stay up until 8am discussing various different things including my permaculture garden and how a mate's new girlfriend wasn't as nice a the previous one and that he should dump her and go back out with the other. :)
We are travelling East to Dresden today so a large chunk of the day is taken up with that, we drink beer on the train and I amuse myself by poking Eileen. :)
My first impressions of Dresden are that it is a lot nicer than Coventry. We head towards Johannes' flat, dump our stuff and wander out for a beer in very nice bar where they are playing records that sound like Jesus and Mary Chain whilst old 60s french pop videos are on the telly. We get back to the flat about one and have a game of table football. Everyone except Johannes, Eileen and I go to bed, we stay up until 8am discussing various different things including my permaculture garden and how a mate's new girlfriend wasn't as nice a the previous one and that he should dump her and go back out with the other. :)
Saturday, August 03, 2013
Third Day in Berlin
I think we maybe all got three hours sleep before we got up, ate breakfast and freshened up. The plan for today is to go to a beach bar with a jumble sale, we leave the house about 3pm and wander up the road, stopping off to have a look in a circus performance and to play on the kids playground for a bit before meeting Tina. It is very hot and we figure that it's probably a good idea to jump in a cab instead of walking.
We arrive at the beach bar which is more like a car boot sale with beer and deck chairs, I am a little bit hungover and the heat isn't helping I think that it's probably a bit too early to start drinking again. For some reason at one of the stalls is young lady with nothing on except a pair of knickers, she is obviously very proud of her boobies. We have arrived a little too late as most of the stalls are closing, Sleeping Dan buys himself a t-shirt for 50 cents and is offered a load more for a very cheap price.
Eileen decides that we should all go down the road to another beach bar where the musical selection is reggae. There is a shower which is very nice to stand under and freshen up, Joe is thinking about wet T-Shirt competitions the dirty boy. Not-so Grumpy Dan is missing, Eileen is going to leave him but I tell everyone to carry on while I go and find him, he has found himself a deck chair and is enjoying a coffee whilst watching the boats travel down the Spree.
Dan and I catch the others up and we go to Yaam which is very nice, they have paddling pools and sand and bars and reggae and people playing football, Madeleine tells me that she is not going in the pool because all the kids that are here have probably weed in it. There is some sort of festival going on but we don't really take that much notice and chill out on deckchairs drinking cocktails, generally lazing about.
I thought Madeleine was very nice, she has a laugh that would cheer up even the most miserablest of people but I am to discover that she is in fact evil. I was sitting there minding my own business when a young child dumped a bucket of water of my head. I discover later that Madeleine had paid this child one euro to do this. Little bugger. :)
Being wet was actually quite refreshing, and when it started raining everyone was quite pleased. Jose, Tina, Eileen and Madeleine are hungry and head back to to Neukolln for a curry. Dan has just bought another cocktail so we decide to catch them up after we have finished. Sleeping Dan starts talking to a girl so when it is time for us to leave he decides to stay. The curry house that the others have picked is very nice, there is more food than any of us can eat, I give it a good go though, I am walking out like a weeble man.
We are all a bit more subdued than the previous night for obvious reasons so instead of hitting the town we gravitate to a park bench where we drink some bottles. I am told off when I suggest putting our empties in the bin because there are people who make a living out of collecting bottles and returning them to shops so that they can collect the deposits. I am starting to feel a little drunk now, despite taking it fairly easy we have still clocked up more units of alcohol than doctors so you are supposed to drink in a month over the course of the day. We decide it's probably time to go home.
I'd like to say I went to bed and got some beauty sleep but I didn't Joe, Sleeping Dan, Jose and I sat on the balcony drinking beer until it was light.
We arrive at the beach bar which is more like a car boot sale with beer and deck chairs, I am a little bit hungover and the heat isn't helping I think that it's probably a bit too early to start drinking again. For some reason at one of the stalls is young lady with nothing on except a pair of knickers, she is obviously very proud of her boobies. We have arrived a little too late as most of the stalls are closing, Sleeping Dan buys himself a t-shirt for 50 cents and is offered a load more for a very cheap price.
Eileen decides that we should all go down the road to another beach bar where the musical selection is reggae. There is a shower which is very nice to stand under and freshen up, Joe is thinking about wet T-Shirt competitions the dirty boy. Not-so Grumpy Dan is missing, Eileen is going to leave him but I tell everyone to carry on while I go and find him, he has found himself a deck chair and is enjoying a coffee whilst watching the boats travel down the Spree.
Dan and I catch the others up and we go to Yaam which is very nice, they have paddling pools and sand and bars and reggae and people playing football, Madeleine tells me that she is not going in the pool because all the kids that are here have probably weed in it. There is some sort of festival going on but we don't really take that much notice and chill out on deckchairs drinking cocktails, generally lazing about.
I thought Madeleine was very nice, she has a laugh that would cheer up even the most miserablest of people but I am to discover that she is in fact evil. I was sitting there minding my own business when a young child dumped a bucket of water of my head. I discover later that Madeleine had paid this child one euro to do this. Little bugger. :)
Being wet was actually quite refreshing, and when it started raining everyone was quite pleased. Jose, Tina, Eileen and Madeleine are hungry and head back to to Neukolln for a curry. Dan has just bought another cocktail so we decide to catch them up after we have finished. Sleeping Dan starts talking to a girl so when it is time for us to leave he decides to stay. The curry house that the others have picked is very nice, there is more food than any of us can eat, I give it a good go though, I am walking out like a weeble man.
We are all a bit more subdued than the previous night for obvious reasons so instead of hitting the town we gravitate to a park bench where we drink some bottles. I am told off when I suggest putting our empties in the bin because there are people who make a living out of collecting bottles and returning them to shops so that they can collect the deposits. I am starting to feel a little drunk now, despite taking it fairly easy we have still clocked up more units of alcohol than doctors so you are supposed to drink in a month over the course of the day. We decide it's probably time to go home.
I'd like to say I went to bed and got some beauty sleep but I didn't Joe, Sleeping Dan, Jose and I sat on the balcony drinking beer until it was light.
Friday, August 02, 2013
The Stasi, The Berlin Beer Festival and Staying Up Until it is Way Way Way Past Time to be in Bed
I think I woke up about 11am, there wasn't much movement from anybody else so I got up showered and read my book, eventually one by one everybody else did the same, Sleeping Dan obviously being the last to make it. Eileen prepared breakfast which we polished off, it was nearing 2pm. Eileen had to finish off an article on trousers for work so Dan, Dan, Joe and I out in search of the S-Bahn. As we left the apartment block I heard Grumpy Dan mutter the words "lord", "out before", "christ" and "3" for some reason.
The station wasn't too far but the signs stop halfway along so we take a wrong turn and end up walking miles in the 50 degree heat that had taken over the city. After stopping to ask for directions we walk towards Treptower Park and faff around at the station buying tickets for ages. Finally we get on the metro and ride over to the Stasi building that No Hair Dan wants to see, inside is a very dry museum where you can wander around looking at 70s style furniture and small cameras that don't really look small enough to be hidden in the places that they were hidden in. Whilst the three of us were having a look around Sleeping Dan found himself a nice few chairs to rest his head. You only get to see a small section of the Stasi HQ but it is immense and quite hard to take in it's full size.
We had arranged to meet Eileen and Jose at 3pm but it already 4pm so we sharply get on the metro and whizz around to the start of the Berlin Beer Festival we decide that because it is so hot we are in need of some liquid refreshment before finding them. We sit at one of the tables next to where Jose works and start off with a nice lager, it is very refreshing. Sleeping Dan falls asleep, Hungry Dan runs off to get himself some sausage and then some steak, Smokey Joe goes off in search of fags.
As I am sat there waiting for everyone to come back I watch a young lady in a skimpy outfit wet her ferrets under a sprinkler, she is quickly joined by lots of interested blokes wanting to stroke them. We spot Eileen and Jose have another beer and then start walking through the beer festival stopping off at different stands to try Nepalese, Singaporean, Ghanaian and Laos beers as well as lots of sausages and pickled foodstuffs. A couple of hours in and we've only really scratched the surface of the immense festival but Eileen and Jose leave us to go to a punk gig that I'm quite glad I didn't have to go to as it would have ridiculously hot and sweaty.
We are met by some very drunk Danish ex-coppers who want us to know that they are with in the fight against the tyranny of the EU and get very upset when asked if they live in Copenhagen.
Grumpy Dan had a little moan about the beer and how it all tasted the same even though there was 330 different flavours and went off in search of an ice coffee (seriously who drinks ice coffee at a beer festival). We sit down for a bit while Sleeping Dan goes to sleep and Eating Dan eats some more and Smokey Joe gets even more cigarrettes. I have a couple more beers while waiting for them to do there tasks and then we carry on.
Our next stop is at a stall that has music, Country Roads is being sung but the words are in German and the lyrics appear to be about Berlin, Dancing Dan seems to be quite enjoying this. Here Sleeping Dan has a cloth placed on his head by one of the ladies in the bar who is concerned that he might be a bit drunk. A group of German lads sit next to us but don't talk to us and so we get up to go to our last beer stand of the night. I am quite keen on the idea getting to the end so we can say we did all 2.2 km of beer but the others all reckon there is no point because all the beers taste the same, that there is still miles to go and we can have BIG STEINS at this stop so this is what we do.
We are forced by Grumpy Dan makes us go the long way around Berlin to get to Kreuzberg where we meet Eileen in the traditional Berlin Bar that we had been in the night before, she is keen for us to meet her friends around the corner but we stop for a beer before doing so. We get to a street corner and meet Nellie, Steffi, Madeline, Jose and Theresa who all seem quite drunk (but this can't be the case because only English people get drunk the Daily Mail tells me so). There is a plan of going into a beer garden but a man on the door is not happy because we all have bottles of booze in our hands so we have to stand outside for a bit drinking those. I'm not quite sure why but we never actually get into the garden and instead are led by Dan towards Friedrichshain where he remembers from last time that there are bars and clubs we can go to. Eileen is not happy about us walking this way and is muttering something about "horny people" and "annoying" but brightens up at the site of the old warehouses and people boozing in the street.
Joe, Madeleine and I go off in search of beer, we are standing across the road from a great big 24hr supermarket but fail to see it until a man at the bus stop points at it when asked if there is anywhere that we can get beer. Joe and Madeleine fill a basket full of beer, I buy some cava and we run off with the basket when the security man isn't looking because we have nothing to carry the booze in. All this time Madeleine is laughing and shouting "WE ARE THE KINGS! WE ARE THE KINGS! WE ARE THE KINGS!". We return with the booze. Eveyone thinks indeed we are the kings. Dan doesn't want he says to sit in a car park and goes off on his own in search of more exciting things he can do.
Time seemed to be very stretchy on this night, one minute seemed to last for hours but hours seemed to last for minutes. I was sat talking to Theresa who didn't believe that my music of choice was house and dance music. All of a sudden she jumped up, flung her arms around me and said "You have to come to this club that on Berlin people know about". She grabs hold of Madeleine who complains that she only likes electric music for 20 minutes before getting bored but she is dragged to the club anyway. We are inside a very hot and sweaty club dancing to minimal techno for what seems like five minutes but when we go outside it is light so it has to have been a couple of hours. Madeleine is now shouting "I GET ELECTRIC MUSIC I CAN DANCE TO IT FOR MORE THAN 20 MINUTES!!!" and rings Jose to try and convert him away from his punk rock ways. We get stamped and return to the others for a bit more persuasion. It turns out that Sleeping Dan has been asleep for quite some time and Grumpy Dan has not returned from wherever he went.
Joe throws my cava all over himself for some reason.
Theresa, Madeleine and I head back to the sweaty club having failed our persuasion, we need to try and look slightly less drunk than we are because the lady bouncer doesn't want to let us back in. But in we go and it is busier than it was before but I don't think we stay that much longer.
It is very late/early but we stop off to have silly photos taken in a photo booth and then jump onto a tube and head back to the flat. Grumpy Dan is waiting outside. We drink some more at the flat and it is nearly ten in the morning before anyone goes to bed.
The station wasn't too far but the signs stop halfway along so we take a wrong turn and end up walking miles in the 50 degree heat that had taken over the city. After stopping to ask for directions we walk towards Treptower Park and faff around at the station buying tickets for ages. Finally we get on the metro and ride over to the Stasi building that No Hair Dan wants to see, inside is a very dry museum where you can wander around looking at 70s style furniture and small cameras that don't really look small enough to be hidden in the places that they were hidden in. Whilst the three of us were having a look around Sleeping Dan found himself a nice few chairs to rest his head. You only get to see a small section of the Stasi HQ but it is immense and quite hard to take in it's full size.
We had arranged to meet Eileen and Jose at 3pm but it already 4pm so we sharply get on the metro and whizz around to the start of the Berlin Beer Festival we decide that because it is so hot we are in need of some liquid refreshment before finding them. We sit at one of the tables next to where Jose works and start off with a nice lager, it is very refreshing. Sleeping Dan falls asleep, Hungry Dan runs off to get himself some sausage and then some steak, Smokey Joe goes off in search of fags.
As I am sat there waiting for everyone to come back I watch a young lady in a skimpy outfit wet her ferrets under a sprinkler, she is quickly joined by lots of interested blokes wanting to stroke them. We spot Eileen and Jose have another beer and then start walking through the beer festival stopping off at different stands to try Nepalese, Singaporean, Ghanaian and Laos beers as well as lots of sausages and pickled foodstuffs. A couple of hours in and we've only really scratched the surface of the immense festival but Eileen and Jose leave us to go to a punk gig that I'm quite glad I didn't have to go to as it would have ridiculously hot and sweaty.
We are met by some very drunk Danish ex-coppers who want us to know that they are with in the fight against the tyranny of the EU and get very upset when asked if they live in Copenhagen.
Grumpy Dan had a little moan about the beer and how it all tasted the same even though there was 330 different flavours and went off in search of an ice coffee (seriously who drinks ice coffee at a beer festival). We sit down for a bit while Sleeping Dan goes to sleep and Eating Dan eats some more and Smokey Joe gets even more cigarrettes. I have a couple more beers while waiting for them to do there tasks and then we carry on.
Our next stop is at a stall that has music, Country Roads is being sung but the words are in German and the lyrics appear to be about Berlin, Dancing Dan seems to be quite enjoying this. Here Sleeping Dan has a cloth placed on his head by one of the ladies in the bar who is concerned that he might be a bit drunk. A group of German lads sit next to us but don't talk to us and so we get up to go to our last beer stand of the night. I am quite keen on the idea getting to the end so we can say we did all 2.2 km of beer but the others all reckon there is no point because all the beers taste the same, that there is still miles to go and we can have BIG STEINS at this stop so this is what we do.
We are forced by Grumpy Dan makes us go the long way around Berlin to get to Kreuzberg where we meet Eileen in the traditional Berlin Bar that we had been in the night before, she is keen for us to meet her friends around the corner but we stop for a beer before doing so. We get to a street corner and meet Nellie, Steffi, Madeline, Jose and Theresa who all seem quite drunk (but this can't be the case because only English people get drunk the Daily Mail tells me so). There is a plan of going into a beer garden but a man on the door is not happy because we all have bottles of booze in our hands so we have to stand outside for a bit drinking those. I'm not quite sure why but we never actually get into the garden and instead are led by Dan towards Friedrichshain where he remembers from last time that there are bars and clubs we can go to. Eileen is not happy about us walking this way and is muttering something about "horny people" and "annoying" but brightens up at the site of the old warehouses and people boozing in the street.
Joe, Madeleine and I go off in search of beer, we are standing across the road from a great big 24hr supermarket but fail to see it until a man at the bus stop points at it when asked if there is anywhere that we can get beer. Joe and Madeleine fill a basket full of beer, I buy some cava and we run off with the basket when the security man isn't looking because we have nothing to carry the booze in. All this time Madeleine is laughing and shouting "WE ARE THE KINGS! WE ARE THE KINGS! WE ARE THE KINGS!". We return with the booze. Eveyone thinks indeed we are the kings. Dan doesn't want he says to sit in a car park and goes off on his own in search of more exciting things he can do.
Time seemed to be very stretchy on this night, one minute seemed to last for hours but hours seemed to last for minutes. I was sat talking to Theresa who didn't believe that my music of choice was house and dance music. All of a sudden she jumped up, flung her arms around me and said "You have to come to this club that on Berlin people know about". She grabs hold of Madeleine who complains that she only likes electric music for 20 minutes before getting bored but she is dragged to the club anyway. We are inside a very hot and sweaty club dancing to minimal techno for what seems like five minutes but when we go outside it is light so it has to have been a couple of hours. Madeleine is now shouting "I GET ELECTRIC MUSIC I CAN DANCE TO IT FOR MORE THAN 20 MINUTES!!!" and rings Jose to try and convert him away from his punk rock ways. We get stamped and return to the others for a bit more persuasion. It turns out that Sleeping Dan has been asleep for quite some time and Grumpy Dan has not returned from wherever he went.
Joe throws my cava all over himself for some reason.
Theresa, Madeleine and I head back to the sweaty club having failed our persuasion, we need to try and look slightly less drunk than we are because the lady bouncer doesn't want to let us back in. But in we go and it is busier than it was before but I don't think we stay that much longer.
It is very late/early but we stop off to have silly photos taken in a photo booth and then jump onto a tube and head back to the flat. Grumpy Dan is waiting outside. We drink some more at the flat and it is nearly ten in the morning before anyone goes to bed.
Thursday, August 01, 2013
Berlin - Planes, Trains and Automobiles
After making the final decision that I will go to Germany today, I run around like a blue arse fly sorting out what need to be sorted out, the gods of traffic are against me however and unfortunately I miss my bus which leads to a long and boring Trains, Planes and Automobiles type expedition to get to the airport with only a few minutes to spare before the plane leaves without me.
I land in Berlin and am messing around with the ticket machine for the bus which wont take my money when a huffy man standing behind grabs my fiver puts some coins in, hands me a ticket, gives me my money back and says "Welcome to Berlin". The bus journey is easy and stops closer to Eileen's brother's flat than I am expecting, I press the buzzer but there nobody in, my phone does not appear to work in Germany so I figure I'll go and see if I can find a payphone/bar and come back later, no need for this as I am two minutes down the road when I see Joe, Dan and Eileen coming up the road.
I dump my back in the flat, drink some schnapps and we leave Sleepy Dan to sleep and Jose because he has to work tomorrow and head out to find a bar with a beer in hand. After a short walk avoiding the dangerous park and having a dreadlocked man compliment me on my accent, we are outside a "hipster" bar, Eileen doesn't like "hipsters" and wants to leave, I think that "hipsters" is code for really attractive young women in the Eileen-English dictionary, we have one beer and leave.
The next bar is a more traditional Berlin bar with real Berlin people according to the Eileen, we sit and people watch and have a couple or more beers and already I am enjoying the city. After a bit we decide that cocktails are in order, I now realise that this is the wrong decision, I let Joe decide on my cocktail and he thinks it might be good to order something from the SUICIDE COCKTAILS section of the menu. What arrives on the table is a highly alcoholic dishwater, it is disgusting, I can't drink much more than a couple mouthfuls. Eileen decides that not only will she down her's in one she will knock mine back as well. She is mostly OK to start with but then starts making funny noises.
Eileen is still making funny noises when we get up to find another beer, she then decides that she can't sit at the table we have picked and will sit on a doorstep a little down the way while she empties her stomach of the dishwater cocktail over the pavement. While she is in the process of doing this a Police van with 15 or so coppers inside turns up, two of them get out and make a beeline for Eileen, I run over and explain that I am with her have half a beer left and am then going to take her home as soon as I finish, one of them asks Eileen if this is true, she nods, and he laughs and then gets back in the van.
We start walking home. Eileen makes more funny noises and has to stop several times to puke some more but eventually get home. It feels quite early to me but it is at least 3am, probably a good time to stop.
I land in Berlin and am messing around with the ticket machine for the bus which wont take my money when a huffy man standing behind grabs my fiver puts some coins in, hands me a ticket, gives me my money back and says "Welcome to Berlin". The bus journey is easy and stops closer to Eileen's brother's flat than I am expecting, I press the buzzer but there nobody in, my phone does not appear to work in Germany so I figure I'll go and see if I can find a payphone/bar and come back later, no need for this as I am two minutes down the road when I see Joe, Dan and Eileen coming up the road.
I dump my back in the flat, drink some schnapps and we leave Sleepy Dan to sleep and Jose because he has to work tomorrow and head out to find a bar with a beer in hand. After a short walk avoiding the dangerous park and having a dreadlocked man compliment me on my accent, we are outside a "hipster" bar, Eileen doesn't like "hipsters" and wants to leave, I think that "hipsters" is code for really attractive young women in the Eileen-English dictionary, we have one beer and leave.
The next bar is a more traditional Berlin bar with real Berlin people according to the Eileen, we sit and people watch and have a couple or more beers and already I am enjoying the city. After a bit we decide that cocktails are in order, I now realise that this is the wrong decision, I let Joe decide on my cocktail and he thinks it might be good to order something from the SUICIDE COCKTAILS section of the menu. What arrives on the table is a highly alcoholic dishwater, it is disgusting, I can't drink much more than a couple mouthfuls. Eileen decides that not only will she down her's in one she will knock mine back as well. She is mostly OK to start with but then starts making funny noises.
Eileen is still making funny noises when we get up to find another beer, she then decides that she can't sit at the table we have picked and will sit on a doorstep a little down the way while she empties her stomach of the dishwater cocktail over the pavement. While she is in the process of doing this a Police van with 15 or so coppers inside turns up, two of them get out and make a beeline for Eileen, I run over and explain that I am with her have half a beer left and am then going to take her home as soon as I finish, one of them asks Eileen if this is true, she nods, and he laughs and then gets back in the van.
We start walking home. Eileen makes more funny noises and has to stop several times to puke some more but eventually get home. It feels quite early to me but it is at least 3am, probably a good time to stop.
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