Saturday nights are generally very busy in Berlin. The roads, in certain areas, are packed with people going or coming back from a bar or a club, food shops packed with hungry people gobbling on different kinds of food, and all these interspersed with groups of people chatting loudly - overall a very lively atmosphere. Yesterday I decided to join in this atmosphere of merriment and joviality. Three of my brother's friends were in town for a career fair and they were polite enough to invite me out for drinks with them. I thought that I would just join them for a beer and then come back home and let them explore the night-life.
I met the gang at this bar called Via Nova on Revaler Strasse near Warschauer Strasse station. The fact that they had chosen that bar to hang out told me that they were not at all familiar with the city. Via Nova is a nice bar with very nice staff, including some very cute girls, but it is not a bar that a person living in Berlin would go to. Nonetheless, we had a nice lively discussion there among ourselves and soon it turned to the topic of what they would do after going out of that bar. They wanted to explore the 'cool' places in the city but did not have any idea of where exactly to go. They also wanted to meet up with their friends who had also come to the fair but were somewhere else but somehow that did not work out. So I ventured an invitation to show them a few places in Kreuzberg, where the main 'action' is and they were very happy to accept my offer.
Coats on, we started off for Oranienstrasse as I know a few nice bars there. Our first halt was the gay-bar called Roses (about which I have written in a previous post titled The Pink Explosion. I thought it would be an interesting place to experience for someone not familiar with the diverse Berlin culture. Roses did not fail to become an instant hit. They were struck dumb by the decor and the ambience of the place and would have buried themselves there for the night had it not been for the lack of an inch of space to stand.
Our next halt was a bar at the corner of the road called Bateau Ivre. It is a nice quaint place which is very crowded in summer as they open up the windows and people can sit outside and have a pleasant experience. The hefe beer here is quite good. The interior of the bar is also very cosy. My brother's friends also liked this place but then again we did not find a place to sit here and so we decided to leg it from there.
My next suggestion was the bar called Luzia which is quite a popular bar in this neighbourhood. It is a kind of a mix between a bar and a club. There is a room to the left of the bar where there are DJs playing Elektro music and people smoking and dancing on the floor. There is also an option to climb up on a balcony sort of space that overlooks the dance floor - kind of cool actually. It is always crowded but the ambience is nice. The gang loved this place and decided to brush shoulders with strangers while sipping on their drinks.
These kids were fascinated by everything they saw in Berlin on this Saturday night and did not fail to express it. They stared at people on the streets, took random photographs, and wowed at every little thing that caught their fancy. They had never experienced such a diverse bar culture anywhere else and had never been offered so many alternatives. As I spent more and more time with them yesterday and as they involved me in their admiration for Berlin, I realised sadly that a certain spark has gone away from my life - the awe and fascination of meeting head-on the night-life in Berlin. I have become used to the diversity and alternate culture of this vast city. Make no mistake, I am still fascinated and engrossed in this environ, but that feeling you get when you experience it for the first time is not there anymore. This city has successfully absorbed me into its midst and now I am a part of this epic.
I met the gang at this bar called Via Nova on Revaler Strasse near Warschauer Strasse station. The fact that they had chosen that bar to hang out told me that they were not at all familiar with the city. Via Nova is a nice bar with very nice staff, including some very cute girls, but it is not a bar that a person living in Berlin would go to. Nonetheless, we had a nice lively discussion there among ourselves and soon it turned to the topic of what they would do after going out of that bar. They wanted to explore the 'cool' places in the city but did not have any idea of where exactly to go. They also wanted to meet up with their friends who had also come to the fair but were somewhere else but somehow that did not work out. So I ventured an invitation to show them a few places in Kreuzberg, where the main 'action' is and they were very happy to accept my offer.
Coats on, we started off for Oranienstrasse as I know a few nice bars there. Our first halt was the gay-bar called Roses (about which I have written in a previous post titled The Pink Explosion. I thought it would be an interesting place to experience for someone not familiar with the diverse Berlin culture. Roses did not fail to become an instant hit. They were struck dumb by the decor and the ambience of the place and would have buried themselves there for the night had it not been for the lack of an inch of space to stand.
Our next halt was a bar at the corner of the road called Bateau Ivre. It is a nice quaint place which is very crowded in summer as they open up the windows and people can sit outside and have a pleasant experience. The hefe beer here is quite good. The interior of the bar is also very cosy. My brother's friends also liked this place but then again we did not find a place to sit here and so we decided to leg it from there.
My next suggestion was the bar called Luzia which is quite a popular bar in this neighbourhood. It is a kind of a mix between a bar and a club. There is a room to the left of the bar where there are DJs playing Elektro music and people smoking and dancing on the floor. There is also an option to climb up on a balcony sort of space that overlooks the dance floor - kind of cool actually. It is always crowded but the ambience is nice. The gang loved this place and decided to brush shoulders with strangers while sipping on their drinks.
These kids were fascinated by everything they saw in Berlin on this Saturday night and did not fail to express it. They stared at people on the streets, took random photographs, and wowed at every little thing that caught their fancy. They had never experienced such a diverse bar culture anywhere else and had never been offered so many alternatives. As I spent more and more time with them yesterday and as they involved me in their admiration for Berlin, I realised sadly that a certain spark has gone away from my life - the awe and fascination of meeting head-on the night-life in Berlin. I have become used to the diversity and alternate culture of this vast city. Make no mistake, I am still fascinated and engrossed in this environ, but that feeling you get when you experience it for the first time is not there anymore. This city has successfully absorbed me into its midst and now I am a part of this epic.
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