thisisnotahostel
aiiiiii those londoners and their bank holiday weekends. for the last week had eight, yes EIGHT people in town visiting all at once. pretty hectic and stressful at times but altogether lots of fun. a german friend commented that i would be really gutted if no one came to visit at all. and admittedly stressing about how you will spend time with all the people who you would really like to see who would like to see you is most definitely a first world problem.
highlights of the last week of the british invasion include a fantastic gig from the wonderful duo that is tetine. they played at hebbel hau zwei as part of this brazilian festival. and i was more than a little chuffed to see how much the crowd got into it. gigs in arts venues are always a bit tricky, but those two tore it up. afterwards was a reallly dirty baille funk dj set. danced so much i sweated off all my make up. dj turned out to know thatf*kingsara, i gave her props for the set she was playing, and ended up dancing with this guy who turned out to be part of this breakdancing crew who was on tour. he invited me to come see his show the next night, and i felt kind of ridiculous when i explained i couldn’t, becuase saturday night i had a rehearsal for a short film, and then a mate from manchester was djing in this club in xberg, and then i had to go to another club friends from london were djing at in mitte, (this is not including the two other invitations i had declined, a houseparty in friedrichsein a random boy at tape club had invited me to the night before, and a gig my friend lucas’s band was playing)
(didn’t i move here to get away from the chaos that is my life in london? i wondered)
the dj moved from baille funk to missy elliot. i started dancing again. but then in true cinderella fashion i realised it was getting late late late, and i had promised i’d go see my friend alex spin at glasscube. and now its like sometime before three, and its a twenty minute cycle away. so i say good bye to the b boy, and the dj, and tetine, grab my friend winta and cycle over to mitte. alex always ends his set with *fly like an eagle. and just as me and my friend winta park our bikes outside i can hear the last bars of the track… damn.
so i miss the set but have a nice chat with winta and alex and before i know its home time so i can rest up for another marathon day. saturday i try to hook up with the various londoners in town, but manage to be out of cync with all of them. then i make it through the rehearsal, and am half an hour late to meet my friends for the first club i’m meant to be at. and that kind of doesn’t work out.
so we head over to 15 above the club weekend for the tetine set. and my friend deb is a little amazed by the concept of a club on the fifteenth floor of an office building. and there is q jumping and people watching in the lift. we decide to check out the terrace and its freezing cold so they’re giving out blankets, and we’re looking over alexanderplatz, drinking cuba libres, playing some variation of truth or dare and cruising all the girls who walk by/over us in totally weather inapropiate dresses.
the next day my friend deb and i head over to mauer park in prenzlaur berg. first time i’ve made it out there since i moved here. eventually catch up with winta again who’s with noemi. and the park is so summer it hurts. there is a rock band, and a samba school, and random picnics, and random couples making out, and the flea market and random cafe’s. and it makes me think that you would only get this kind of vibe in london if there was some kind of festival on. and i feel like a traitor instantly for thinking it.
yesterday, four guests left. show them all the almost final cut of notbar doc. really positive feedback. feels like a film now really, starting to consider sending it to festivals and not just screening randomlly here and there. finally get to hang out with my friend haje and his girlfriend elena. we meet up with thatf*kingsara and uta. have wonderful long dinner at cafe’ v and talk about culture, gadgets, blagging, long distance relationships, and what makes butch girls hot. (you had to be there)
so this is my last week of random freeflow play time. next monday begins the chapter of daily german classes and importing footage for the online doc. so there may be less adventures. but then again… this is berlin, so maybe not…