one long party

Saturday night I went dancing for the first time, I think, in 3 years. It seems at least since I left Washington, setting aside dancing at weddings and formals (which counts, but is different). Our class this month is much more divided along gender lines, also with bigger age differences, and a few girls wanted to experience Love Parade. I remember hearing about it on MTV at some point, and also from kids in college who were in Berlin. A more atmospheric, if snarky, appraisal is here.

I woke up Sunday morning, and the little spot between my ribs that always hurts if I push myself a little too hard...it hurt. A good sort of hurt, but I think it speaks well of both Berlin and live techno that I got my money's worth from the much-hyped 9 dance floors of the Kulturbrauerei. I am not a big techno fan, nor do I love big crowds of dancing people or high cover charges, but this is the sort of thing I had heard so much about...and there's gotta be something to balance out the 3 operas and an entire month of soccer - and so we went.

The parade itself, full of apparently half-naked crazy techno fans, all 1.2 million of them, had already happened Saturday afternoon; I was shopping for a sensible pair of shoes for Tanzania at the time. This sounds lame, but it's not like I missed out on the festivities - I was in two different central train stations. I literally saw a pair of pants that were, well, pants-less. Most people were just wearing swimsuits - lots of fake flower leis and whigs in flourescent colors - a group of English club guys all wearing mismatched Hawaiian prints. This at 3 pm. Later that night, we gathered in Prenzlauer Berg - which used to be the hippest neighborhood, but now has the highest number of toddlers per capita in Europe...imagine the same change Williamsburg has undergone, in New York, but MUCH bigger - for dinner, drinks, and the dancing. Most people had clearly been partying/dancing/reveling for a good 12 hours at that point, with no sign of stopping.

I have heard a variety of things about clubbing in Berlin, to wit: porn movies are projected onto the walls of the hippest, edgiest clubs; things get busy much later than you'd ever expect (and dawn comes between 4-5 am); people will travel to see beloved DJs; Germans are serious about their techno. All of these things were true "LoveBase" at the Kulturbrauerei, where 9 different rooms hosted a total of 90 different DJs. There were glow sticks, and lots of artificial smoke. People wore T-shirts from their favorite DJs, they did not dance when the DJ was really performing, but stood and watched, quite transfixed. We ladies were surprised, really, how few people were dancing, and at the inordinately high male: female ratio. Literally, you would squeeze into a room, the DJ at one end, very impressive lights, and there would be tons of personal space. Maybe 2 am was a bit early for things to be crowded, but the other American and I got a big kick out of this, remembering the squished dance floors at college parties. This was also the first time I went dancing in flip-flops, which made for some hilarity. Some of the music was great, some of it was wholly painful, and we only saw a touch of pre-dawn light, in the end. Not that my grandkids will believe someday, or that it will still be relevant, but now I can tell them that I not only saw "Carmen" and lived through the World Cup, but I also went out dancing during Love Parade. And that's Berlin for you.

One of the other highlights of the evening was finding a real German ice cream cafe, complete with random and wonderful flavors. I had a scoop each of grapefruit (not sorbet, but ice cream, Thalia!) and quark with mandarin oranges. German ice cream is really something different. Everyone raves about gelato, and maybe it's similar, but I think fluffier and creamier; everyone has their favorite neighborhood Eisladen (= ice cream store), and the best ones boast funky flavors like rose, yogurt & sour cherries, hazelnut, etc. I talked this over with my German speaking partner the other day, and we decided that weird national flavors are pretty typical all over -- explaining chocolate-chip cookie dough to someone who does not normally eat chocolate chip cookies made that very clear. Anyhow. I've been taking lots of photos of graffiti & found art, but maybe I'll get a few of typical ice cream shops, too...