Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Die Wochenende

On Saturday evening, there was an event in our neighborhood where all the quirky little bars had live music and/or DJs, so we wandered around and checked them out. The first place we went to seemed normal enough. Then Eric led us to the back, and opened a nondescript door, and there was a tiny acoustic concert going on in a dimly lit room. Other places had similar quirks--one had the DJs suspended above the room on a kind of catwalk. Another had a maze of small, dark rooms with clusters of people smoking and murmuring conversations. The weirdest was one with a back room that had two mattresses on the floor, made up with blankets and pillows, a couch, and a projection of a live feed of the front room in nightvision. As we went in, a bunch of people standing at the door seemed to think it hilarious that we would want to. We were the only ones in there. One wall was covered in carpets and when we investigated we found that behind them was yet another small room. This one had three big couch cushions on the floor. And apparently, though I didn't notice it at the time, a big picture of a vagina on the wall. I do not even want to know what these weirdo rooms were for. But it had us giggling like schoolgirls. Anyway, there are some really great little places tucked around here. I like this neighborhood more every day :)
Then I headed to Mitte to catch a midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. They had all the yelling and such in German, but the accompanying live cabaret show was in English, and I'd guess the audience was about half and half. Some of the German things to yell were different (long complicated sentences that no one in the audience seemed able to yell in the prescribed amount of time) and some were direct translations ("Schlampe! Arschloch!"). The guy who played Brad was American and made cheesy jokes the whole time. I got a real kick out of it. The next day I found playing cards and rice in my coat pockets. Hahaha.
On Sunday Eric and Josh were running a 10k race over in Charlottenburg (west Berlin) so I joined them on the half hour U-Bahn ride and cheered them on. Afterwards we took a look at the gardens behind Schloss Charlottenburg and they are really something. Like a mini combination of Stourhead and Versaille: part rigidly laid out formal gardens, part carefully landscaped "wilderness." I bet they're lovely in the summer.
When we got home we went out to a Turkish place for hummus. For 3eur, we each got a bowl of warm creamy delicious hummus with whole chickpeas and herbs in it, plus a big plate of veggies to share and three huge pieces of bread. It was a great lunch. Another good place to know in the neighborhood!
Soon thereafter I headed over to Potsdamer Platz (Berlin's Times Square, basically) and the Sony Center, where they show original language movies. This is where to go if you want to see an American movie in English, otherwise they are usually dubbed into German, which admittedly is probably pretty amusing as well. I met with a friend to see the Time Traveler's Wife (I know, cheesy, but I just read the book and wanted to check it out). It was SO SAD. I felt bad for dragging my friend to it.
Yesterday I baked zucchini bread with the leftover zucchini from Friday. Josh freaked out about how good it was :) I took half the loaf over to my friend's place and we watched another Bruce Campbell movie, Bubba Ho-tep. The basic premise of the movie is this (possible spoilers): Elvis is not actually dead. At the height of his career, he got tired of it all and decided to switch places with one of his impersonators. Unfortunately the contract that would have allowed him to switch back at any time was destroyed in a tragic trailer park barbeque accident, so now he's in a nursing home under someone else's name and no one cares about him except his friend in the nursing home, a black man who claims he is JFK but that the government dyed his skin and put a bag of sand in his head in place of a brain. When a reincarnated ancient Egyptian mummy starts terrorizing the nursing home, the two old crazies must team up to save the day. Sounds stimulating, does it not?
Busy week coming up!
Bis bald,
D.

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