Brithdays, Dancing, and late night Dining

It's been a few days since I've blogged but it's because I've been pretty busy.  I feel like I'm really making progress in the friends department.  I think I'm up to like 8 or 9 now.  Enough that I don't have to keep count anymore. 

This past Friday I went to a gallery opening for a friend of mine from NYC.  It was a cool show and really my first time hanging out with the artsy types in Berlin.  After the opening we went to grab some food and then to Soho House Berlin.  It's funny because I've walked by the Soho House here many times never paying it much mind.  I'm actually only familiar with Soho House because the comedian who does VMK mentions it in one of her posts.  Anyway, it was a great venue and the only way to go is of course if you know a member.  It was two floors, very cool decor that I would describe as Americana rustic (think Aspen chic ski lodge).  The second floor had an outdoor roofdeck pool that overlooked Alexanderplatz and was VERY cool.  The water was heated and I seriously considered derobing and jumping in, but it was raining and my friends weren't as enthused. Anyway, I think I'll save my 900 euros (annual price to be a member) and just keep patronizing the 4,000 other bars/clubs/lounges in Berlin. 

Saturday say was pretty low key because I knew the evening would be a long one.  A friend of mine, Christian, who I met on my first visit to Berlin turned 30 on Sunday and we celebrated Saturday night by going to this amazing show at the Chameleon Club that was like miniature Cirque du Soleil.  It was a fantastic show with a cast of 8 (4 men and 4 women).  I will be sending most of my visitors to the show...it was that good.  After that we went to a bar that was literally the size of most people's walk in closet's in the US.  Somehow they fit a good 25 people in there though.  From the bar, called Betty Ford (lol), we went to one of my favorite clubs, Schwuz.  I ran into some other friends there and ended up dancing until nearly 6 am.  After, Henrik and I, both famished, went in search of late night food.  Well unfortunately, Berlin despite having a crazy nightlife, is greatly lacking in late dining options.  We ended up going to Burger King which I don't think I've eaten in years.  I ate a disgustingly large amount and was unpleasantly reminded of it Sunday morning er afternoon when I rolled out of bed. 

Good things about Berlin's night life:

• U-Bahn (subway) runs 24 hours
• Things to do every night of the week
• Great variety of things to do (galleries, shows, live music, dancing)
• No open container laws
• Really fun, creative parties (Saturday night at Schwuz was called Popkicker and there were ping pong tables set up one of the three dance floors)

Things about Berlin's night life that take some getting used to:

• No late night diner food :(
• Going out at 1am is early
• Berlin is REALLY spread out, commuting between bars is not like going from Nellie's to the Diner.  It's more like Nellie's to College Park.
• Leaving the club before 4am is unusual
• Bakeries are open (for the next day) and selling baked goods on your commute home from the club...(I can't decide if this needs reclassified as a good thing)
• There are quite a lot of others but in order to keep this PG13, I'll let you ask me about those in private

 Anyway the bottom line is that nights out in Berlin generally render Sundays pretty much worthless.  All I have to say is thank goodness I don't have to work on Mondays because I'd be suffering from some SERIOUS P.A.D.S.