In Communist Germany, Party Has You.

I'm aware this is a long time coming so it's going to be two posts. The following is part 1: Berlin, Germany.

While reviewing my plane ticket to Germany last week, it occurred to me that in my quest to find the cheapest available ticket, I had accidently booked one that left at 6 in the morning. This wouldn't have been a problem if the Parisian public transportation system weren't closed between the hours of 2 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. My oversight meant that I would have to take the night bus from the center of the city at 4:35 in the morning if I had any hopes of making my plane. A more responsible person might've gone to bed in the 8 p.m. family in order to be well rested for the trip. I, instead, chose to visit a suite of bars and forget the sleeping thing all together. My friends and I (toting a rolling suitcase), with the addition of an Australian boy we encountered on the street outside a random hostel, drank sangria and partied into the wee hours of the morning, after which I drunkenly boarded a bus to the airport.

I arrived several hours later, exhausted and still wearing the clothes I had partied in the night before, in Berlin, which is arguably the ugliest city I've ever been to. The people I was staying with live in East Berlin, so I took the subway from the train station to their adorable apartment. The most used feature of said apartment was a gravity bong that sat in the kitchen in a location that I may have put a blender if it were mine. It was almost like an appliance. This was the first clue that I may not be able to keep up.

The other GW people arrived a few hours later and started a string of partying unprecedented in my lifetime. Other than a few touristy visits such as pieces of the Berlin wall, a cool cemetery, the Brandenburg Gate, and a flea market, the only things I saw in Berlin were the insides of clubs, the first of which was a gay club with several rooms playing varying types of music.

The second club we went to resembled some sort of old warehouse with a bunch of different floors and rooms that were playing different types of music. Despite the heterogeneity of the music, the clothing sported by all of the men in the club was by and large the same: a tuxedo vest and a skinny tie. In fact, those of whom were not wearing a tuxedo vest and a skinny tie were so overwhelmingly outnumbered, it was almost as if they didn't belong. I found this to be amusing.

Anyway, I returned to Paris after three days with no voice and an epic cold. I then rested one day until the next string of parties...