Berlin by Night (and morning)

Night Life: Hannah dancing at Kater Holzig as the sun comes up; even the grand museums in Berlin are nocturnally exciting. This crazy light projection is part of the Berlin Lights Festival.

My last full day in Berlin had a watercolor beginning. The light of night and morning bled together in the frames of the club windows. We wandered outside as the light pollution-gray sky began melt into small white clouds. The courtyard of Kater Holzig ends in layered wooden docks along the river Spree (in pirate ship fashion). The morning there seemed crisp and poetic, which is far more than you might expect from a club that is open from Thursday night to Monday morning with a regular crowd that enters in the morning, or the afternoon, and stays for what seems like days.

I came to Kater Holzig my first night out in Berlin worried that I would be far too sober to handle the techno-heavy Berlin club scene. A beer and a Club Maté (fizzy bottled tea) almost made me forget that I was getting over a no-good phlegmy cold, but my energy level was low. This all changed when we passed through the courtyard, which is draped in lights, paintings, and sculptures, into the first room of the club. I have never considered myself a techno fan, but the music in Berlin literally lifts you. We ended up staying until around 6 am.

Before I arrived Hannah had ooo'd and ahhh'd to me about clubbing in Berlin. She made it sound like every young person did it, but that some clubs were harder to get into than others (outside Kater Holzig we stood before an older woman on a couch for what seemed like minutes before she waved us in...). I said I could "glam it up," but that isn't the direction in which Berlin leans. As we walked the streets my first few days I looked around, trying to figure out the "club type" person. I figured it out my first late night on the metro. Everybody goes clubbing. In other cities, one might say everyone goes to shows, or to coffee shops. In Berlin it's clubbing. There are as many different kinds of clubs as there are restaurants. We found ourselves in a little dubstep club one night, with mostly young guys who probably still lived with their moms. The music was phenomenal. On Halloween (before returning to the Kater Holzig) we wandered into Kreuzberg's SO 36, which was hosting the biggest Turkish gay dance party I could ever imagine--huge colorful draping and a Middle Eastern pop soundtrack that everyone seemed to know the words to.

It is in the clubs that I discovered the energy of Berlin. The nocturnal club scene is far from a dark underbelly. It is a creative, cultural space, beating hard with the best sound systems in the world. Obviously my semi-sober, vacation experience of this space is, like my first impression of most anything, overly optimistic. In the high ceiling'ed white kitchen of Hannah's apartment we had many conversations with her roommate Raquel about the drugged out demise of many Berliners, who can't say no and live for the music and the scene. We had to wonder about her and her own experience with the techno scene, as she moved to Germany from Australia when she was 12 with no German, and now giggles all the time (usually in an adorable way) and sometimes forgets how to speak English ... Perhaps the scene is better for visiters? Don't tell any real Berliner I said that...

photo courtesy of www.katerholzig.de

The docks of Kater Holzig. Earlier in the night we were at a bar with Halloween makeup. By the end of the night my "scary eyes" looked more like runny eye-liner. So it goes.

Leaving Kater Holzig. I really hope I'll be back.