Anyways, he led us on a bit of a walking tour through East Berlin, pointing out sites I'll probably check out later in the week.
The TV tower again.
Along the River Spree.
Here's Brandenburg Gate.
Fifteen minutes later and we're looking at skyscrapers. West Berlin.
Checkpoint Charlie. More on this later.
After our walk, we came back to Schoenhauser Allee to a place called White Trash Fast Food. It's a former Chinese restaurant, that has kind of been through a rockabilly re-imagining. It's difficult to explain, try to picture weird kitsch paintings where the eyes have been replaced by colored LED lights, a menu that insults more than it informs, and a bar where ZZ Top would be comfortable rubbing elbows with William S. Burroughs. I had the King Elvis Burger, a giant concoction involving bacon, barbecue sauce, sauerkraut and cheese, with a side of Fuck You Fries (sorry Mom, that's what they were called!) and I'm still not hungry 24 hours later. Like most of the cooler places we've been, photography is verboten, so you'll have to make do with my clumsy prose.
I did manage to snap this one of Tom before the scary waitress in the fishnets caught me.
Post-dinner we headed out to Oranienburgerstraße, which we soon found out is Berlin's Red Light District. Of course, that's not why we were headed there, but Ian did get to try out his new approach to warding off whores; he speaks to them in Spanish thinking they will get bored at being unable to close a deal and move on. Unfortunately, as in Barcelona, no matter how much Spanish Ian speaks, everyone can tell he's really a native English speaker and they reply in English. I'll tell you, though, I dunno if it's the legality or what, but these ladies are WAY better looking than streetwalkers in the States, or so my limited experience has shown me. There's just only so many times you can turn down a beautiful Eastern European woman. I feel like James Bond or something.
But enough about that. On Oranienburgerstraße (say that three times fast. Heck, try typing it!) is a bar/club called Zapata, which looks like (probably is) a bombed-out former office building. But before I could buy a button or play with the M-16 on the bar, Ian dragged me out the back, into this incredible biergarten. The whole building it turns out is this kind of art colony, founded by squatters soon after the wall came down. So the backyard has weird art projects and converted military equipment, along with people drinking, smoking and laughing. The Doors' "LA Woman" came wafting across our ears as we were served half-liter beers out the side of a graffiti-covered converted trailer home. We sat down on some giant iron letters that didn't seem to spell out anything in particular, as we watched Berliners lounge about on everything from a car seat on giant springs to a chair that looked like something the mom in Betelgeuse would have designed (long, spindly, organic forms, but wrought-iron). I heard they even used to have a decrepit crashed-down MiG back there.
We chilled there for a while, then when it started to clear out (sometime around 3) we dropped into this after-hours club/bar called Silberfisch which was actually surprisingly mellow. I guess even in Berlin Sunday night ends early.
Back to Belushi's for a bedtime Beck's and some more deep conversation (Ian's really good at that), then off to the land of Nod for another nacht, just barely making into bed before the daylight shone.
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