The Gate

After going to the Altes Museum I met up with people at Tierpark, first with Hannah, her new roommate Merium (Paris), Pierre (Merium's friend from Paris) and Lisa (Malta, German and English.) We climbed on the roof of the apartment and the view was beautiful, you could see the lights far off, you could see the tiny people moving straight below. I unfortunately drank the beer that Hannah's old roommate had left, it was warm, it was not good. We went out looking for something, with the addition of Laura and Bengi (Ankara, Law) and Rita (Athens.)

    Hannah and Pierre had looked up a bunch of clubs and settled on Club Soda, because it was possibly free. When we got there the line was long and the entrance was free for women until one am, and it was eight euro for men; that revolted me. The line was long because it was almost one. Eloosha had recommended to me Suicide Circus, an industrial-site-turned-club, in the Friedrichshain area where a lot of the nightlife is. I figured if it doesn't work out we can easily find somewhere else. We found the club right away but not the entrance. We circled around hearing the music, walking past the gratified walls and broken bottles, the pissing men and chain smoking youths until we finally realized that it was right where it should be; right by the stairs where we came in. By that point we had forgotten that we should split up before trying to enter, hush down our foreignness. The bouncer asked us if we were over twenty-one, only because we had been speaking English. I said yes I am over and gave him my drivers license, which clearly states that I'm not over 21 until 2013. He was okay with this, but no one else showed their i.d.'s so we didn't go.

    Honestly, I just forgot that I was under 21 and was too busy trying to  call Merium and Pierre to figure out where they had disappeared to.

    Not far from there someone groped my butt, and it wasn't someone I knew.
    It was two and we were still just walking around, unsure of where to go. Hannah said that she would go home at three am, she was also unhappy to see and hear men peeing at every corner and tree, and it was cold. Me being me, I felt bad that it hadn't worked out. We passed by a club with a huge line and where approached by some guys trying to convince us to help them get in, since they let in women with ease and groups of men not so much. Honestly I didn't really register this club culture until...well Ben had told me a couple weeks ago that this is how it works but it didn't sink. These guys were not German, maybe Italian.

    It was beautiful walking around at night, and Bengi agreed.

    We kept walking because Pierre knew some place and then it was three am and Hannah and Laura left and we went to a pub called Cake. It was crammed and smokey and we sat next to a large strange women who asked where we where from and why we where here, all the time writing endlessly in even cursive, drinking another glass. I say another because there where already a few glasses standing around here, some strong liquor like whiskey. Lisa convinced me to do shots with her and I was envious of the writing woman, "I wanted to sit here and draw," I thought as a plume of smoke circled out of of a young woman's' mouth and sat suspended, not dissipating because the air was already so dense, and then finally it diffused into the rest of the smog.

    Then Pierre suggested we hop over a fence to get into this club called Chalet (it would be cheaper that way.) He had done it the last time he had gone to Berlin, and he said he had been scared and made a fake stamp on his hand and then realized there was no way of getting caught. We were all game. He jumped over and I held back, because I knew I would be fine getting over a fence, and the other girls seemed a bit less certain. Lisa went over second, but her dress and bag caught and she was left hanging on the spikes, dress bunched up around her waist. The bag was quickly removed but she was suspended on her dress for longer than I expected her to be. Two huge lovely holes in her favorite dress to commemorate the event. Rita went next, Pierre and me telling how to do it and and me saying that yes she can and yes she can. Same with Bengi. And then I came over and jumped from the top but a bit too confidently and fell, twice, because I tried to get up but the momentum of the fall was working against me. A scab on my hand and on my shoulder to commemorate this event. Then I got and up with Lisa went to dance and track down the bathroom (the mens room was cleaner, and emptier, the doors to both bathrooms where wide open.)  An hour later the techno got redundant and we left. We meandered back and watched girls walk barefooted down the stairs, through the glass, the bottoms of their tights black from the dirt. Lisa and I recognized them from when we had gotten off at Washaur Strassa. Going up the escalator at Tierpark, the skirt of the girl in front of me had gone way up, so I could see that she was wearing a thong under her tights. For some reason I didn't think to point this out to her; it didn't look sexual, it just looked silly.  At six I was relived to find that Hannah had left the door to her room (and so access to my sleeping bag) open.