Brrrm Brrrm Berlin

My year may be up in London soon but I aint ready to go home yet. Nuh uh.

I'm in Berlin on a brief scouting trip and some training for a kids camp counselling job I got lined up before I officially move to the continent on my next 'working-holiday' in April.

And here I am on a soggy Monday evening.

On the S-Bahn from Schonefeld Airport on a Monday
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(.....me, reading a Lonely Planet on Germany....|sat opposite|....a German girl, reading a guidebook called 'Arbeitsfeiertag-Hersteller in Neuseeland'.... )(...................||...............)
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(........||........)(........||Old Punk rolling tobacco from a rusty tin, watched over by his Alsatian at least twice his size......groans..)(..............||........)(........||..............)(........||........)
(........||........)(........||................)(...........ticket lady looking very grumpy........||...............)
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Camp Counsellor Training on a Tuesday

I have an instant family for the week. Never have I seen a gathering this random yet this strangely-well-fitted grouped together in one room- essentially for baby-sitter training: 'Painter' from New York USA; 'Biochemistry graduate' from Tanzania; 'Sculptor' from Honduras; 'Performing Artist' from California USA; 'DJ-Author' from Adelaide Australia; 'farm girl' from Perrinvalle, Australia (ie. Perrinvalle- area 4047km2: population 3 vs Berlin - area 892km2: population 3.5million); 'Med student' from Kenya; 'Fiddler in an Irish Band' from Glasgow; 'Children's books writer' from London; 'Musician' from Melbourne Australia; 'Opera Singer' from Virginia USA; 'Sound Artist' from Melbourne Australia; and me - the highly suspicious Tiwi 'Freelance Social Scientist'.

Naturally, in the evening we crashed a hip-hop party in Tacheles.

Berlin Rules on a Wednesday

1. Don't J-walk or face condescending frowns
2. Feel free to drink on public transport
3. Look left instead of right before crossing, or you'll soon find out why
4. Don't get caught without a ticket (re: Indiana Jones Zeppelin Scene)
5. Feel free to light up inside bars and restaurants
6. If you have a dog you get extra dole money
7. Be a good German and cycle
8. Be an even better German and recycle

DJ'ing on a Thursday

I must have a very high ego permeability. Its only day 3 and I've already started dreaming in German.

Thursday nights are Gallery Opening nights and DJ-Author from Adelaide took me and the Sculptor from Honduras for an all night Gallery Opening Crawl. Many shots of vodka, one too many beers and a €25 print later, we ended up at another Tacheles Bar, where DJ JimmyKrass let me have a go at the helm. Fuck- those earphones sounded amazing. I shouted "Everybodeeh Say - Doe, a deer!" and they just ignored me.

JimmyKrass is an extreme uber-geek version of Deno half the age, and looked like someone that would play a collection of Kraut-Rock, but instead he's strangely into Motown. He'd completely lost his accent (in the interim he sounds like a Finnish Dolphin) as well as his affinity to the land down under, thus making him completely unAustralian. His sex-kitten French girlfriend is delightfully dressed like Katy Perry and has Run Lola Run hair. She says she into body suspensions.

JimmyKrass turned up to camp-training the next day quite late and during a Masai-Warrior jumping exercise, a number of women's make-up items dubiously fell out of his jacket pocket.

House Party on a Friday

The Kaisermart white wine@ €1.99;
Cured pork disturbingly named 'Biofleisch' dipped in mustard €1.95 ;
Soft cheese €1.15;
copious amounts of pretzels€2;
Dressing up as characters from those Peter Fox videos for pillow fighting- ummm... priceless








Market-crawling & NGO-Cafe Party on a Saturday

I totally confess to being a market junky. It really is the most pleasurable way to check out what the locals anywhere do, eat, say, what they exchange with each other, what they value, how they establish unspoken rules, what they consider junk, and what they consider treasure, how far, and how low they are prepared to go...

I snapped up some pea soup with a large brotwurst swimming in it, and a fascinating and often hilarious and amusing 2008 bilingual and introduced version of 'Pocket Guide to Germany' - a little part-propaganda-part-military-instruction-part-travel-guide manual given to American GIs on D-Day by the US Army regarding everything from appropriate etiquette, psyche, politics, history, music, geography and sexual health.



In the evening, 'Fiddler in an Irish Band' from Glasgow invited us to their gig at an NGO-sponsored cafe-squat house in Freidrechshain for a pre-St Patrick's Day gig. Its a very very dingy house full of all kinds of junk but still runs a successful cash bar, a couple of cuddly dogs (re extra dole rule) sleeping on the couch and the kitchen is busy making vegan slops. Punks and hippy kids filled the air with smoke and the dancing to 'What Should We Do to the Drunken Sailor' on the thin floor jolts cold rainy night...











First-Aid Training on a Sunday

The dummy I have to blow into has a detachable plastic face. And then there are random facts like this:

Trainer: What should you do when someone gets bitten by a poisonous snake?
WaWa: You should tie a bandage around the bite and suck the venom out with your mouth?
Trainer: No... in Germany we don't suck on anybody unless they tell us they like it.

Looks like I'll have to be back to learn about other do's and don't's....