The "Let's try new things" weekend!

So it was decided that this weekend wasn't going to be like the others! No Paradise (Bar 25), and no MauerPark!

It's officially been a month that we've been here and we have already shocked most Germans with how many things we've done and places we've seen. However, there are some very basic things that we haven't done, and there are others that we've gotten too comfortable with.

Friday Night: Disco Bowling!

David had the great idea of taking us to Disco Bowling on Friday night and so, for one weekend, we weren't going to go to an underground electronic/house club and dance till 6 am, but try something new!

Disco bowling was hilarious! At first we arrived and it was the most ordinary bowling alley. Just about 15 lanes, and people were, well.. bowling! It was fun for us cz we haven't bowled in about a million years, and we got to meet David's very nice friends: Max, Jim and Bram!

Suddenly, Tout a coup, at about 11 pm, the lights were dimmed down, balls started emerging and dropping slowly from the ceiling... the sides of the bowling lanes were lighting up like an airplane's landing strip calling it to its destination... and the music was turned up full blast. It was on! Disco bowling baby! Loud cheesy pop and disco with the most retarded lyrics was blasting through the speakers as we ran and threw our balls to the rhythm concentrating more on being synchronized than on actually hitting the pins. There the sport of bowl cheerleading emerged as no player could possibly have his turn and go towards the lane without being accompanied by at least 2 dancers cheering him/her on and dancing to the beats to wish him/her good luck.

It was a fun couple of hours before they had to close and literally beg us to leave.

I won by the way.


After that, by someone's special request (Zeina, and.. well, David!), we went to a hip hop place which was a fail because they played Reggae, then finally a great place called Suicide Circus, in which we sat for hours outside listening to beautiful house music.


SATURDAY:

Let's try something new and sightsee! By sightseeing we don't mean Lebanese sightseeing which basically means partying in ALL the clubs and/or bars of a city (Which we have very successfully done), but actually, see.. the.. well, the city!

As odd as it is, after a full month in a city, after learning the entire transport system by heart, after having the map in our mind's eyes, after picking up some German words and learning to understand some, after being at that stage where we look at tourists with disgust and say: "this place is fucking filled with tourists! Where are the Berliners!" and meaning it, and truly believing ourselves to be part of the Berliners ... Here we were suddenly walking around with a group, our cameras handy, some of us with notebooks (Zeina) and following a tour guide eagerly as she takes us down roads and places where we already have memories, but while explaining the history behind them!

It was a very nice tour. The guide was extremely funny and charismatic. It was like watching a stand up comedy. Who says Germans have no humor! Anyway, the important thing is we decided to let her join Dania and the girls and had we not lost her and the whole tour group a couple of hours later because SOMEONE (me) wanted to go to Mcdonald's and get a Sunday, she would definitely be like our new best friend by now!

Anyway, good day. We realized how Germans carry around an extreme guilt over what happened with Hitler and the Holocaust. There isn't much left of Nazi Germany, but the stories are still here and they are engraved in the hearts of practically every German, who tells them with a shamed guilty face.

Moving on! That night we were supposed to go to a Party called Half Baked. It was a giant fail. It resembled the parties we used to have when we were 13. it was a big empty room, with music and hardly a few people who were practically separated: boys on the right, girls on the left and no one on the dance floor!

So since it's "let's try new things" weekend, we decided to play it a la Berliners, got some vodka and beers from the gaz station nearby and had an entire party on the stairs , out on the streets, in front of the party.

Never have I ever yet everyone has and a couple of bottles later and it was one of those nights that was going to go down in the books.

It is impossible to have an uninteresting night in this city.