new year's eve in berlin - part two

so here we are again, ready to continue on from where i left off with my new year's eve in berlin - part one. i hope you're still comfortable in your couch's arse groove and you haven't eaten all of your nacho hat just yet. you might want to boil the kettle again as there's still plenty more to tell. after all i only just got past telling you about the countdown and the endless spectacle of fireworks in potsdammerplatz, both government planned and publicly procured, and as we all know, new year's is never the shortest night if planned properly or executed in just the right way. so let's start up this sordid tale of drunkeness, danger and stupidity once more... (and if you haven't read part one i suggest you don't cheat and read this one first, scroll down and read it you damn sneak!)

there we were in potsdammerplatz watching fireworks hit buildings, fly through the crowd in a dangerous display that could easily start off another fox reality show simply called 'When Fireworks Attack!' and let's not forget about the poor fools dodging death at every rusted up movement of the ferris wheel from hell. my companions and i were soaked to the bone with champagne, having been sprayed by each other and random showers from the crowd, and in a very good mood as only the consumption of champagne can bring. but being champagne we knew the drunkeness wouldn't last too much longer and we decided to head off to berghain, the so-called undergroundest of the underground clubs that berlin has to offer. now don't get me wrong, the club is awesome and if anyone wants to start up a franchise in melbourne i am all for it, but firstly a word to the wise - never believe a german when they tell you something is underground. it never is. for if something is truly underground you don't have thousands of people trying to get in or advertising that litters ever bus stop, train station and shop window. that's not even including the fact that i heard about berghain on the radio in berlin, cab drivers know where to take you and people everywhere in freakin' australia told me to go there. AUSTRALIA PEOPLE!!! personally i just started substituting the word alternative for underground everytime i heard it. and it was alot. i also came to believe that underground was the new word for cool. like as soon as something is deemed cool enough by the hipsters of berlin and the surrounding artisan universe then it automatically gets an 'underground' status, but i'm getting ahead of myself here. let's get back to this somewhat linear narrative before i go off in another tangent, as i tend to do.

we left potsdammerplatz, avoiding firecrackers shooting off into the crowd and the drunken revellers that the polizei couldn't, and probably more wisely, gave up on controlling. it seemed as though they just decided to watch for any completely idiotic behaviour and ignored the constant sily behaviour. the night had truly spilled out into the surrounding areas and this being germany, there were no public toilets anywhere. all three of us had to go, and after that much alcohol it wasn't exactly a surprise, so we decided to go against a building. now i'm not much of a public urinator, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. i thought to myself, will i get into to trouble for this? and the answer came immediately. you take a quick look to the left and a quick look to the right and judging by the general concensus it seemed you could pee anywhere, so long as there was a wall to pee on. now ladies before you start your 'you're so lucky you're a guy' monologue, consider this - it wasn't just men peeing everywhere. on my walk back from my own peeing adventure, i noticed four other guys doing it and at least two women. how's that for equality? and all this half a block away from the polizei and their watchful stare, but when you see a constant stream (pun intened) of the peeing public using the side of a building to relieve themselves, amusing jokers trying to blow everything up with fireworks and a throng of people trying to break into a locked door of the train station, what are you going to do? answer, ignore it all and just pray to god, allah or whoever that the night will end soon and you can go home to forget you had no control for one evening.

now walking towards the train station, or bahnhof, i decided to call cousin cass and wish her a happy new year. cousin cass and i over a phone call at christmas time had a deal, she would call me five hours after midnight back in melbourne, which would make it five hours before midnight for me in berlin. i really wasn't expecting her to call as she was spending the evening at a burlesque show (which is kind of strange or ironic, or something to that effect, that i would be in berlin, but it would be her doing something completely german - incedentally i never got to a burlesque show in berlin, but then again i haven't come home and there is still plenty of time for that to happen). that coupled with the fact she was in australia and that we do have a loud and drunken reputation to uphold, i figured she was just drunk and forgot or was just having to much of a good time. either of these reasons were fine, as it was new year's and who am i to begrudge someone a phone call, that is if she could even get through. so it was at this point that i called her, using alexis' phone of course because i never had the oppurtunity to get more credit for my vodafone call ya handy because everything is bloody closed. (prepaid = call ya, and well, handy = phone. i am also under the impression that vodafone are a complete ripoff in germany, but as i can't understand the rates i am just going to put up with it. how funny that a former vodafone employee can't understand the phone rates and charges! hehehe...) the phone call went something like this (note, somewhat summarised as i can't remember the exact phone call);

cass (somewhat hungover and sleepy): hello?
tim (drunk and shouting): HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
cass (still a little groggy): HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! dear god! what is going on there? where are you? what is that noise?
tim: can you hear me? i'm in potsdammerplatz heading towards the train station. this is insanity! i've drunk so much champagne. hahahaha... this is anarchy! there's fireworks going off everywhere, people are fucked and crowding the streets. shit! (to alexis) did you see that? that one nearly hit someone!
cass: what is going on?
tim: can you hear the fireworks? it's like the russians are trying to take back the east! it looks like the french riots a year or so ago, just less blood and way more colourful! FUCK! (to alexis or paul, i can't remember) that one went straight into the crowd!
random female stranger (screaming at me, drunk and looking it): ein gluckliches Neues jahr!!!
tim: yeah, happy new year. (note i had no idea what she was saying until paul told me i said the right thing back)
cass: who was that?
tim: i don't know

the call continued on like this for another five minutes. i enquired about her burlesque, she about my countdown and so forth til i let her get back to sleep and we arrived at the potsdamerplatz bahnhof. and this is where it got a little squishy. if you've ever been in melbourne after the stroke of midnight and tried to catch public transport you'll know what's coming, but even the melbourne public transport couldn't even fathom the pure anarchy of what was going on everywhere. we walk down some steps and into the train station and that is where we have to stop. you see all two point something million people i am certain tried to catch the trains at the same time, and berlin trains, as punctual as they may be, are insane. for example, to get to charlottenberg (major shopping district) from where we were staying near yorkstrasse you had to catch three trains. that's one to get you from yorkstrasse closer into the city, another to get across the city and then another to get from there to charlottenberg. for a comparison let's imagine some mythical trains in melbourne but use the right suburbs for distance - from moonee ponds take a train to central station, from there catch another one over to brunswick and then from there catch the third one back over towards collingwood. it makes no sense at all. i suppose if you consider that the city was cut in two after the war and then had to make do with what they have, plus adding some new ones in without crossing the border from east to west, but then had to join everything back up again it's no surprise. but you try being a tourist and try to figure out where you go and what one you catch! the only saving grace is that a train comes past every station almost every six minutes and they are always on time. beat that one connex! for a city as spread out and obscure as can be, and then to have as many people as melbourne and still run on time without cancellations and without inspectors, it just makes you hate connex even more. if that was possible, that is. but enough bagging connex, it's a fish in a barrel metaphor waiting to happen.

so there we were, wedged into a throng of people all wanting to go the same way but never getting any further. it was strange. it was like a moshpit without music, a shoesale in an all girly town, a UN food distribution in a troubled african village. three words - squishy, stinky and uncomfortable. i felt about four hands touch my arse, some poor woman's breasts in my back, the alcoholic stench of some drunk spaniard in my face and i lost all my friends in the space of three minutes upon entry. it took us about half an hour to get the twenty metres from the door and up the stais to the platform. oddly though, once you reached the top of the stairs it was relatively empty and you could feel a small breeze waft through the place. however during the agonising baby-stepped trundle to the platform someone let off fireworks inside the station. no one could see who did it, and even the polizei yelling at people something i couldn't understand on the stairs couldn't see or do anything about it. i found the whole thing highly amusing and giggled the whole way. i did ask a woman next to me what was going on and if this happened every year. she replied with a smirk on her face, 'it happens every year and she has no idea why.'

when we finally got onto the train and it was more of the same - squished in and more cramped than the actual station was. the only difference was that we were now squished in shoulder to shoulder with a stack of english university students here on a holiday. i so wish i was stuck with germans or even the spanairds again. there's something arrogant and very snooty about hearing an upperclass english accent after a few months of hearing nothing but american and german. alexis likes the accent, but for me personally, i would rather hear a chorus of ballarat bogans singing a footy song than the faux-upperclassness of the british. it probably has something to with the amount of times i've had to watch an english documentary at school or put up with some snooty customer at work deriding my country and it's customs as coming from the colonies. each time i hear that it makes me wanna say, 'it must really burn you up inside to know that america is now on top. after all, they shunned you and let go of all that upstairs/downstairs snobbery.' but that's just me being prejudiced against the english. by the by, i don't mind a liverpool and manchester accent, it's just that snooty one that irks me. you know the one i mean.

but again i come back to the topic at hand, we had a quick train journey and arrived at our destination and met up with a couple of friends. reinaldo, the other guy we were staying with, and ricardo, a friend of alexis' from cuba that we just happened to meet up with by coincidence a few days earlier. now the 'gang' was all together we headed towards berghain and the rest of the party. i think i'll continue the story of berghain another day, as it really does deserve it's own entry. you see anything can happen in berghain, and by that i mean anything.