Continued from Berlin Day 4 Part 1.

30 minutes of waiting outside, we made it into the indoor portion of the line.

It would be another 30 minutes before we were at the ticket counter. There’s only one lady working the ticket counter. The elevator capacity is the bottleneck.

Keep on waiting, suckas! Actually, even after we got our tickets, we were informed that we’d still have an hour of waiting left. Ugh!

There are monitors showing when your ticket would be called to queue for the elevators. We’ve got another hour.

Finally! This has taken 2 hours already. This is as bad as waiting in line for the Eiffel Tower.

203.78 meters to the observation deck. All I could think about is why I couldn’t avoid the guy’s forehead into my photo. Damn tall Germans!

Ohhhh, Ahhh! Unfortunately, by the time we made it to the observation deck, it has already started getting dark and the clouds have started moving in. The ever changing weather of Berlin.

Rathaus.

That big patch of green is the Tiergarten.

Fuck You Berlin! Fuck You for giving me three days of misery! FUCK YOU!!!! With that said, today has been excellent and I am loving it here today.

We sat down at the bar in the observation deck to have a beer.

Then we decided to stick around for a bit longer to wait for it to get dark outside to catch some of the city lights.

There’s the lights.

OK, that’s enough. It’s been a long day already, and it’s time to find some food. Today is Friday, and we know the weather will stay nice. We wanted to go out late drinking in Berlin and we had circled tonight as the night to do it. The weather is supposed to turn wet and cold again tomorrow, so despite being tired already from being out all day, we headed back to Kreuzberg, to the bars.

Alexanderplatz station at night.

Back at Kreuzberg, SO’s stomping ground. SO said that schawarma at this place is the best. Schawarma is very similar to doner kebab, but it’s prepared a little differently and it also contains hummus. MMMmmm!!!

How can anyone read that menu? I feel like everyone has been coming here for so long that no one ever reads the menu anymore.

Fresh meat! Also cooked on a vertical spit.

Yes yes yes. I love food. Though, I will say that I am starting to crave for a lighter healthier meal. Heavy German food plus greasy schawarma has me wishing for a lighter meal soon.

Kreuzberg at night. The schawarma place is right across from the Vietnamese food place that we ate at the other day.

If only they knew what box is a slang for…

I love Kreuzberg! Berlin is starting to grow on me…

I took a photo of this graffiti the other night. A new sign has since been added above it.

Our first stop for the night. I asked SO where we should go drinking. I told her to just take me to where she drinks with her friends. Well, this is the place. It’s an Indian fusion restaurant that offers 4 Euro drinks all night long. Berlin is a pretty cheap city relative to other European cities, but still, 4 Euros for a mixed cocktail is a pretty good deal.

We sate in the side area of the restaurant under a big tent.

All the 4 Euro drinks were fruity tropical drinks. Bring it on!

Some snacks while we drink.

I am not ashamed…

Screwdriver!

Those drinks were super strong. I think they had double shots in them. I was feeling great about Berlin now. Today has been just great. If my first day in Berlin was today, I would have loved Berlin.

I went to the restroom, and when I walked up to the urinal, the guy next to me asked where I was from. I hadn’t spoken a word. I told him I was from the US. I could tell that he’s a tourist here as well. He had an accent, but I couldn’t tell from which European country. He was drunk, and he mentioned something about how he loves Berlin. Another person who loves Berlin. They are everywhere! Of course, I had to ask him why he loves Berlin, because I can’t seem to love it. He said that I need to go party with him and his friends. There’s 13 of them from Denmark, 3 guys and 10 girls. Mind, you, all of this was happening while we were pissing next to each other.

Sure, why not, I’ll go hang out with them. I told him that I had to go grab my friend SO and that I would meet them out front(they were about to leave). I got SO, told her to just come with me and that I met a guy in a restroom and we’ll go hang out with him. Now thinking back, that must have sounded really wrong at the time.

We walked out of the front door, and we see a large group of Danes standing outside waiting for us. The guy who I was talking to in the restroom saw me come out, comes up to me and asks me to say something that sounded like “Come Baro”. Sure, why not. I say it and everyone else starts laughing, and they all start saying it too. What does it mean? They all spoke English, but not perfectly. They tried to explain, but the best that they could come up with was that it means something like “Come on!”. Sure. They were heading to another bar in Kreuzberg, so we followed them. Come Baro would would repeated hundreds of times for the rest of the night. We got drinks, Come Baro. Someone knocked over a drink, Come Baro. Come Baro this, Come Baro that. I am liking this word/phrase.

The next bar/restaurant, a Mexican place. SO didn’t really want to come here because one of her friend hooked up with a waiter here and that didn’t turn out too well. Fortunately, that waiter wasn’t working here today.

There were 16 of us now and we took over a whole corner of the restaurant. I had to text my friend SO(different SO), who is a Dane living in Austin and ask him about “Come Baro”. SO said it probably wasn’t all Danish but a mix between multiple languages. He asked if the Danes were all drunk. They were. His suggestion was just for me to party with them. Done.

The Danes. I talked to several of them and asked them all why they love Berlin so much. One of the girl had been to Berlin 6 times. She said that the first time she came here, she hated it. Yes, I know that feeling. Then she says that after a while, she realized how cool Berlin was. She likes how people here are just chill. No one gives a shit here. It’s a cool place to just hang out.

I think that’s my problem with Berlin. I came here with the wrong mindset. If I came to Berlin thinking that I was going to come to a chill city and just chill out and hang out, it would have worked out. I think Berlin may be a great city in the same way that Austin is a great city. Austin sucks for sightseeing. But if you come to Austin to chill and hang out with friends and soak in the culture, then it’s awesome. I came to Berlin not looking for any of those things, and of course, found only hatred for Berlin. Today, everything is starting to shift in the right direction. I am starting to see the light.

Oh, the crazy Danes on top of the table. Everyone was drunk and having a great time. I was drunk too, so not too many photos from the night.

We were beat and really drunk. Man, those fruity drinks were strong. We exchanged some contact information with the Danes outside of the bar, and left to make the long trek back to our hotel. We may meet the Danes to go clubbing tomorrow, but I doubt it. I am sure we’ll feel like shit tomorrow morning and all day. There is a bus that takes us straight from Kreuzberg back to our hotel. At least we’ve got that and won’t need to transfer.

Drunk, but that won’t stop me from taking photos with my fingers in it.

Took this in a restroom. I can’t quite remember which restroom this was taken in…

Oh wait, we can’t go back to our hotel yet. We need to eat some food. This is at the famous Kreuzburger place.

Mayonnaise on wedge potatoes like them Europeans.

This being Berlin, the weather shifts on the fly. It starts to rain hard. Bus! Where are you?!! The weather is supposed to suck ass tomorrow, and the front has blown in.

Waiting across from the Kreuzburger place for the bus.

I can actually see myself living here. It’s not touristy here and it feels like Austin.

The bus finally arrives. So tired and so drunk.

How weak, it’s not even that late. Damn those strong fruity drinks! I must be getting old. What happened to those days when I would party until 6 in the morning? Nevermind, that still happens, but just not tonight.

Today, my first good day in Berlin.

To be continued at Berlin Day 5.