Dance at it

So I've now been in Berlin a few days and here is how it has gone. Sunday was pretty cool. I spent a bit of the day wandering up and down the street my hostel was on seeing if there was anything cool about (there was but at the time I didn't know). I was down in the Hostel bar for a while where there was a big group from a Belgium Product design course. If that sounds pretty vague to you then your in the same boat I was when they said that, the Fredric started to explain it too me
"we think of things people don't have and then think about making them"
"... so your an inventor, You can go to inventor school!!"
" Um, Yeah pretty much, engineers don't like us"

So a little later I met up with a group Aussies I met in the Hostel earlier and we went to HORST. This club in Kreuzberg. So to get the ambience, it is about 1am and  the entrance to the club is down an alley under a train bridge. There is a large man in from of a door that almost blends into the alley walls ( I don't think I would have noticed the door even if I new where it was). This man at the door looks like he hates everything that is happening around him. he pushes us on through to a dimly lit (even for a bar) space that is composed of two areas. One has a bar in it and some couches (not too interesting). The second section has a DJ in the corner (no one paying him any attention) and across from him a twenty foot high wall of speakers. No speakers anywhere else, just the one wall (this speaker wall is actually what is creating the two sections). House music is blasting out of this wall and everyone is just dancing at these speakers... not dancing by them, but dancing AT them. So we dance WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
After a while we go for a sit down where some of the other people in our group were already sitting. One of the girls is being hit on by a German guy (he introduced himself as L'arron?).
"Where are you from?"
"Canada"
"How do you like Berlin"
"Well it's only my second night, but it is nice so far"
"It's your second night and your here, very nice!"

So being there impressed L'arron, so yeah I'm kind of a big deal. We got tired at dancing at the speakers so we headed back and slept, mmmmmm sleep.


The next day I slept in to destroy some of the jet lag and then on to wondering. I decided to go on a free walking tour met someone named Ice.... for reals they told us they always wondered the meaning "So I looked it up and apparently it means frozen water" *big laughs from the group*  although the next day when I went on a different tour with the same guide she told it again. You now how some jokes just keep being funny.... this joke is not like that.

The second tour I went on was really cool (the Alternative tour). It was mostly about the street art scene and the varying forms of underground culture and art. One stop that made a pretty strong impression on me was at Tacheles. This is a building that has been around for a long time (1800s... ish) and has had uses ranging from sticking it to department stores, housing prisoners in world war two and a few other crazy things. When the USSR fell in 1990 like many building in east Berlin this building was abandoned and then like almost every single building in East Berlin at the time artist came and squatted. The building became a hotbed of art and culture for Berlin and the city liked that. After awhile the company that owned the building at the time gave the artists a ten year lease (1 dollar a year). The lease has been up for some time and over the course  the deed came into the hands of a bank that wants to sell the building to some hotel. The artists have been fighting it ever since, even though everyone is in their favor  the main problem is that no one (including the Berlin government) has enough cash to pay off the bank. So if you get a chance I urge you to come to Berlin and check out this landmark of culture that could soon be housing fat tourists (I'm not fat so i can say that). Or better yet  go to www.tacheles.de and support them (you do not need to pay money to support them, moral support more then welcome).


So in conclusion
Tacheles = super sweet
everywhere in East Berlin = presumably housing squatting artists (well maybe not)
Me= tired
speakers = get all the attention
djs = can sit int eh corner and do their damn jobs

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND

scene