Das Birthday
Last weekend was my birthday, so me and two friends leiderhosed down to Berlin to enjoy the city's food, nightlife, cheapness and general culture of irresponsibility. We spent most of the weekend consuming one thing or another, so instead of describing my weekend, I might as well just catalogue all the shit I managed to drink, see, purchase, destroy and masticate in 72 hours:
- 21 cups of coffee, including a moral-weakness latte at Copenhagen's only Starbucks, at the airport.
- 27 beers of dubious, umlautey brand origin.
- An empire's worth of Britpop at a club called London Calling. Pulp! Blur! Oasis! Goldfrapp! Stayed til 7 am, dancing like Rudyard Kipling.
- About 25 East German memorial statues commemorating individuals, social movements and assorted earthtones.
- The smells, sounds and particulates of about 2,000 animals. The highlight of our afternoon at the zoo was Knut the baby polar bear, who is now idle and surly and spends his days rubbing himself against a tree, just like every other teenager I've ever known. The monkeys were shit-fightingly entertaining, the big cats were emo and the predatory birds looked like they were waiting for you to die. All in all a successful day, even if I am still trying to wash the nocturnal house out of my beanie.
- One plate of currywurst, while trying not to think what's in it, three kebabs, while trying not to think how long that lamb-spit has been rotating there, and two rabbit steaks, while trying not to think of 'Watership Down'.
- 8 to 12 megatons of diesel exhaust. This capillary genocide was thanks to the Berlin transport union, which called a ten-day strike the day before we arrived. Instead of dealing with taxicabs and sore feet all weekend, we just rented some lady-bikes and circulated the city in the empty bus lanes. This was mostly charming, but biking right in the center of the road has you sucking some serious tailpipe. I've been suffering from Grandpa Laugh ('ha ha ha ha cough cough hack') ever since I got back to bike-lanes-a-la-mode Copenhagen.
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