Balls Cold in Berlin

We get to Berlin Thursday night with Google and his sidekick Taskbar, who DEFINITELY need their beauty rest so I am stuck to going out alone without a PUB CRAWL so I decide to just sleep early. Bad influences all around. A sober and a night in: I need better friends sometimes.

Our hostel for the first two nights is called Generator Hostel. There were easily over 700 people in the building. Think Thurston. Slightly younger age though, there were definitely a share of high school kids. It is a ENORMOUS place for 10euro a night p/p. With breakfast. Incredibly cheap. Breakfast was bread and cheese and different bologna varieties. As well as jam/nutella/cereal/milk/coffee/juice. Definitely high value to euro ratio here. It's a bit far from the center of the city, but I think since the trains run at all hours, definitely do-able.

Not to make matters worse than a walking tour at 10am, it rains in Berlin off and on and it’s freakishly cold. We are taken to the central meeting point for the tour which is by the Brandenburg gate on the metro by a tour guide who picks us up from our hostel. Me and Naren buy normal adult tickets, guess what Vinay buys? A discounted ticket that is for like children and senior citizens. I talk about racquetball and squash with our tour guide and how I only can run and do yoga here in Europe. He takes out a map and plans a run from my hostel to a section of the Berlin wall for me. Ooh, I like doing active things like this. I wonder if I will wake up early enough to run tomorrow? Likely not. We get to the gate and there is a big square and some of the buildings are very modern. The American embassy is right there and it looks really nice, mostly glass and very modern and new. I want to go in and grab a coffee there, think it'd be nice. I wonder how welcoming they would be though, I don't remember, but I still haven't shaved I'm quite sure.

We get numbers for tickets to be placed in tour groups; there are over 300 people there and there are tour groups in different languages as well: English, German, Spanish, French and maybe another one or two. Huge tourist crowd but I like it, love international cities.

The tour itself was pretty good, our tour guide was the same one that took us on the metro and he cheered up and got a lot more social. We saw some really interesting sites, one of my favorite sites was the Jewish/Holocaust memorial. I don't really remember the title, but also there's no title on it. This causes a slight controversy. On one side, there's no plaque or information board telling people what the memorial is; on the other hand, this allows for open interpretation for each individual person. The memorial is basically just blocks and cubes of blank stone and with ramped grounds so the scenery can change quickly. I go off alone and get lost in thought and myself for a bit. Its simple concept but I liked this memorial the most in Berlin.

We don’t have to worry about getting lost from our group because there are girls in bright pink ponchos that are beacons of ridiculous brightness that are impossible to miss out on. Pink Poncho Twins. Also a side note, I learned from our tour guide that pink was a manly color back in the day. Something about the Berlin wall, it was a wall made out of marshmallows and people starting eating at it and it came down. American attention span, Go Figure. Seriously, it's because pink is a bright color and you have to be stronger to survive if you are wearing pink. Makes sense. Also, if you guys go on New Europe tours, tip them at least 5euro a person on account they get charged 2.5euro per person on their tour. Play nice.

Oh yeah, I shockered the Berlin wall.

We grab our first Doner Kebab of the next few days. This will not be the first. They are dirt cheap here at 2.5-3.5 euros.

We are meeting Ashley at a pub crawl that is different from the one associated with the tour group. Hindsight comment: stick to the other one, never trust white people, especially polish people.

Meet two guys from LA when we buy our tickets from the pub crawl, Rick and Jared. They like San Fran better than LA too, solid. Walk over to the first bar and meet up with Ashley and some of her friends. They are all working here doing research and I can tell they are all engineering-ey types. We head into the bar and Ashley and some German guy, mainly German guy own me and Dan in foosball. Ashley, being a picture whore, wants a picture so we ask a couple girls nearby for a picture.

End up talking to said girls, SoCal girls who used to run track and field and pole vaulted. They want to find a local university or something and watch their track and field stuff here in Berlin. I wanted to do Yoga in every city, which has worked out so well so far. Typical SoCal girls, Kelly I call Kelly Kapowski is blonde and def Cali girl like and Allison is the Asian girl that Cali is none too short on.

On the way into the next bar I am mocking the pub crawl guy like I normally do and these Texas girls are attracted by the blazer. Love this blazer, gets me doctor votes as well as girls try to use it as a pillow. If I haven't introduced this before, we play the “Pick one out of us to be your doctor.” Lets just say me and Naren as the Blazer Boys have a slight advantage. Vinay gets zero votes and every time I laugh. Me and Naren are usually out in our blazers, looking decent, well me not even looking decent with massive beard growth but it still beats Vinay's fucking dry ace face with white shit all over it. This kid needs to take care of himself. Somehow the Texas girls find out my name so they are screaming it every time they see me by the end of the night. At this point they are just normal drunk so they are cute and bearable. One of them loves DC apparently and talks to me about moving there for the 15 minute walk over to the next bar. Exciting, jizz in my pants, amazing, thanks a-hole I want to think of DC right now.

Ashley is an idiot child that thinks she is at Disneyworld. So when there are prostitutes on the street with their pimp RIGHT there, she tries to get a picture with them, with epic failure written all over the situation. These prostitutes I’m sure are doing the exact same job as Mickey Mouse, they want jackass kids to take pictures with them. Sign my left nut.

At the next bar these guys are playing a pretty sweet drinking game, I’m always down to learn new games. Apparently they are playing a category based game, and they are on the category of places to cum on a girl, and it’s going on for rounds and rounds and ends in more hilarity.

On the way to the next bar we go into a little convenience store with Kai (aka Dimple), Ashley’s German friend and we get beers to drink outside. He is a genuine nice guy and interested in American culture and we learn and share a lot with him, and him with us. I get this raspberry wheat beer which is delicious and way too good to chug.

Once inside the bar, I tell Vinay to talk to bored looking Asian girl. Vinay goes in with something about her having Asian glow. I blurt out a little red riding hood comment. She flicks us off, but we keep talking and apparently she is too drunk to understand English. Playing around and now hooked, we eject for fear of projectile vomit. Outside the bar, pub crawl chick is trying to round people up, but doing a shoddy job of it. One of the Aussie girls steps onto a bench and plays pub crawl guide/ flight attendant and tries to get people to come over here. She is using airplane landing hand signals and I love people who do shit like this, because well I do shit like this. Vinay keeps on pushing me into her because well she is saying “Come closer everyone.”

At some point in the walk to the next bar I somehow meet Canadian girls and tell them I’m from TORONO. (At St. Christophers in Paris, these girls knew I wasn’t from Toronto because I pronounced the T, now I know). They believe this for most of the night. I am a chameleon. We end up trying to watch people step on shit that's on the sidewalk. Everyone misses it for some reason and we get bored and wander over back to the bar. I talk about learning Spanish and one of the Canadian girls says: “tengo ocho pinguinos en mis pantalones.” Wow random, show her my penguin boxers, and I win with about 70 pinguinos en my pants.

Back to the next place. Most of the people are shitfaced sloppy right now and me, Rick and Jared the Cali guys are going around about how we “fucking HATE Americans” . The Texas girls are so sloppy not even hobos want to touch them anymore.

We are in this tiny, sweaty club with about a 100 people. I dance for a bit and go over to the lounge area/bar that has armchairs you would expect your grandfather to sit at and smoke a pipe. I sit there with Kai and Naren and chill out.
Allison is talking to some guy at the bar and I tell the guys I want a quick challenge for myself. I go over and give her and Kelly Kapowski a hug and start talking to everyone. I talk to the guy and Kelly for a bit and Allison has just enough money for a shot and she takes a tequila shot by the bar. I run over to the bar and say that I am astonished. She took a shot with salt and lemon, off of herself. That should not happen in Europe. I tell her to pinky swear with me to never let that happen again. I say I'll play European stripper if need be: but rule is: never take a shot with salt off of your own hand. Playing around with everyone and the Cali guy talking to them tries to convince them to go to another bar or club. No go for him. He says bye to me and tries with Allison one more time. No fly. I get the girls to come out to the dance floor where I see the Aussie girls from before.
Hang out with the Aussie girls as the flight attendant one and I make bridges as people walk through a la me and Blair after one set of exams this year. The Aussie girl asks me if I can tell if her and her sister are twins? The other twin has boyish short hair and def more punk rocker style. But it's still pretty easy. Of course missy, I live with twins. We make a bridge for Naren, Vinay, and Kai as they walk to the other side of the club. Naren heads home and I am once alone again to find my way home.

I say bye to Naren and say I should be fine to go home granted I don't get rufied twice. Aussie girls come by and give me a hug and say bye, they had fun. Bridge building is always fun.

I dance with Kelly Kapowski for a bit and we head outside to talk, when I somehow end up talking to a German med student for the next half an hour. Everyone is tired so I go to grab food with the SoCal girls but they don't have cash and I hardly have any money and no one takes cards at this hour. Their hostel is close by and I have to train it all the way back to the hostel wherever it is but they are super nice and are like we aren't leaving you until you find out how to get home. So I get directions from a few guys in a bagel shop and we say our goodbyes and go on our merry way. Meet this super nice German guy who basically helps me find my way home, and we end up helping this Argentinean girl named gasp yes Florencia again to the airport. 4/5 girls I know from Argentina now named Florencia.

Random note: there are super hot moms rolling around Berlin without wedding rings. This has happened 3x so far. My team.

Naren and Vinay get written up from underground police because they didn’t buy metro tickets but they won’t pay because it’s a communist establishment.

Next day I spent mostly hanging out, doing Yoga in our new hostel room facing towards the graffiti artwork on the building across from us. Grab a drink on the rooftop of the hostel.

That night we go on the New Europe pub crawl which is much bigger and def a lot better. Highlights:

Highlights of Naren and Vinay's sociability. Shiva is talking to a group of people and introduces Naren and Vinay.... only to look around 2 minutes later to find them talking to themselves.

Naren and I talk to this Dutch guy about Holland for a good half an hour.

We meet Scottish Indians. Awesome.

Run into Pink Poncho twins. They are excited and want to put their pink ponchos on but do not have them.

Naren and I talk to large German girl. I leave Naren with said large German girl and meet normal sized Aussie girl.

Naren and I talk to kinda douchey but also pretty excited guys from NYC. They are smart too apparently at Stanford and Columbia or something like that. They are young at like 19 or so.

Me and Naren are outside the club at the end of the night. There are at least 30 people who know us and tell us we should come in. Nevertheless, Naren is a bad influence and we go home.