Wie bitte?

A Year Onwards

I am the passenger and I ride and I ride
I ride through the city’s backsides
I see the stars come out of the sky
Yeah, the bright and hollow sky
You know it looks so good tonight

So today I woke up nursing a hangover - not that this is unusual for a Sunday - and realised that on this date, a year ago, I arrived in Berlin. That’s all I’m able to muster really, because Berliner Kindl (filed under “acquired taste”, “beggars can’t be choosers” and the sadly overused “Why?”) really affects your ability to string coherent sentences together the following day. Some things are never a good idea. Like invading Russia in winter, declaring your ship unsinkable and letting Leonardo Dicaprio play an Irishman. Or mixing cheap beer with raspberry syrup to hide the flavour.

Anyway, so in honour of this anniversary I’m playing a Berlin soundtrack of sorts, something with depth and melody, a classic. In other words, no techno. Long before The Age of the Turntable, Berlin inspired many artists, like Iggy Pop, a passenger who rides through West Berlin in the 70s and finds himself full of lust for life.

Thanks for being such a wonderful host Berlin!

Another quote…

There are moments in Berlin night life when it would be nice be a native English speaker, just to be able to appreciate all the nuances. Like when a Swede and a Spaniard who have just met in Watergate and shared a taxi to Alexanderplatz talk about how great they think Berlin is: ‘I fucking love this city.’ Or shortly afterwards in the lift when a Dutch guy who lives in London gets talking to a Norwegian girl, and she’s there with a friend who just moved to London. While they’re attempting to explain all of this - they do have fifteen floors to travel - another Norwegian chips in, telling the Dutch guy that, should he ever travel to Norway, he mustn’t go to Bergen as it’s incredibly boring.. Then we reach the top. The door opens and the lift operator lests everyone out. On his way out of the lift, a guy in his late twenties who sounds as if he might come from Australia, and who has been listening to his companions’ conversation the whole way, says, ‘Norway, Norway - that’s the country with the fjords, right?’