Missing You

It's been almost a month and it's started to sink in that I'm not going home. I've been thinking about some of the people I miss already. You know who you are. We found an apartment but the deposit / first month's rent is going to make quite a dent in my savings. It's really big, though, and there's a 3rd room so Carlitos can have his music studio. I found out that the class I was planning to take at the VHS won't cut it for a student visa. They say it's not enough hours even though it's the same number of hours as any other language school. I'm confused. I think they're just saying that if I'm going to stay here I need to be putting enough money into the German economy. I'm going to start health insurance next month. I decided to go with general care and long-term care, but am not sure about dental. I need dental work done. I have 3 fillings left to be filled. Miguel said if I need some extra cash and can't find anything else he'd consider offering me some p/t work for Tigerbeat6. That sounds awesome, and like something I could do. Every day I wake up to a white and gray sky barely shedding light through the window. There are spiraling naked ivy branches infectiously spread across the wall blocking my view. I wonder if anyone ever trims them and if they'll grow green in the spring. I look at the clock to see it's 2 pm, and that I've slept half the day off. I take a bath and read Goethe and wonder about the ways I'm related to young Werther, the lost romantic, the aimless artist, the child-like poet. I drink coffee with Milka chocolate in it for breakfast because I don't want to spend $4.50 on a half-carton of eggs that won't taste good without salt anyway. I start to wonder how my friends in America are spending their morning. And then I realize they're all asleep.

Journey To The Center of the Kit Kat Club

Okay, so Carlos and I had been joking for a long time about going to the Kit Kat Club- home of Berlin's most well-known, long-loved S&M /kink / fetishy-type szene. Although Carlos and I are certainly not leading each other around the house via dog collar or strapping each other to that awful 1990s couch in our boarding house, the Kit Kat Club has such tremendous noteriety that I figured, as new neighbors, going there was a necessary part of our initiation as Berliners.

(Above: Dresscode for the Kit Kat Club)
Firstly, let me say that I have never been to the Kit Kat's sister club in San Francisco- The Power Exchange, but I imagine the Kit Kat Club is a lot like it in certain ways. There were lots of naked people, lots of half-naked people, a few trannys, some people having sex upstairs, girls in their underwear, vinyl, leather, nurse costumes, cop costumes, and a plethora of odd decorations such as gynecology chairs and metal toilets strewn throughout the black, humid interior. The walls were painted in elaborate blacklight sensitive murals with men, women, and everything in between partaking in a myriad of activities in the "done while naked" category. After I got over the initial shock of seeing nude, untethered penis flopping this way and that I realized that most of the clientele were actually pretty respectful of each other's space. Of course there were two things that helped with this. A) Most of the men there were gay men, and B) there were a great deal of couples dotting the dance floor. I never once had anyone try to grab me, or even hit on me, although I can't say the same of Carlos who is like a bunny at the dog tracks to clean cut gay men and trashy goth girls. Another thing- the music was quite good, resident DJs DramaNui (sassy redhead) and Clark Kent (butch gay extraordinaire) spinning a mix of electro, mashup, and techno that wasn't too cheesy or too eclectic, but frightfully danceable. I was a little disappointed to find only two dance floors as the Kit Kat Club recently took over the notorious Sage Club (which used to have 4 floors of banging techno with a pool in the middle from what I hear) but this is the nature of the unstoppable metamorphosis that is the Berlin club scene. We arrived at 2 and left sometime around 5, needing to escape the unbearable humidity, not to mention rest our feet and morals. I can't say I'm planning on becoming a regular, but could certainly see myself wandering in here on one of those nights that needs more craziness or leather men.

Electroclas & Bikes @ MauerPark

Our first week has been full of excitement, adventure and bicycles. More specifically, yesterday we went to the flea market with Miguel aka: Kid606 and bought bikes. It was the first time we had really been out in a few days due to partying as hard as we do during the weekdays (par example: Friday we saw Mochipet and stayed out until 8 in the morning at a bar called Molotov Cocktail which serves actual flaming bottles of sweet sweet fury!). It was nice to be awake before 3 for a change, and get to do something productive. The flea market gave me chills as it reminded me so much of the Ashby fleamarket in Berkeley from the hipsters digging through tables of retro clothing to the herbal mineral supplements in hand-labeled brown glass jars. As our main purpose was to get bikes, I decided to stick to that this time around, although I did develop a fancy for many of the hand-made animals, t-shirts and dolls which I may have to go back for. Carlos lucked out and got a really nice old-fashioned blue town bike. I got what the man who sold it to me said was a kid's bike, but as Miguel claims I'm "the size of a kid anyway" so I guess it's okay >^_^< We rode the bikes home, avoiding the touristy mess that is Alexanderplatz, and got lach crepes in Mitte for lunch. One odd thing I noticed about my bike on the ride home is that the splash guard has a screw loose and so when I go fast it rattles and sounds like shooting bullets. Even stranger, when I put the brakes on the tires make a whizzing sound like a bomb dropping. This has led me to the conclusion that my bike is apparently possessed by World War One. Be this as it may, it'll be so nice to have a(n inexpensive) way to get around town (apparently u-bahn monthly passes cost 70 euro - about 100 bucks!) Now I just need to get some turtlenecks and big goofy hats to keep the wind from destroying my face while riding my bike in winter.
0.o Speaking of housing, today we're going to look at a sublet right down the street from us. I hope it works out! We have to give notice on the 15th if we're planning to move out, and hopefully we are. It's not that I don't like the boarding house but I'd like to find a permanent place so I can start settling in.

We have a new apartment & our manager is dead

It's true. We arrived on Friday only to find that the reason our latest emails hadn't been answered by the manager is that he died 5 days ago. His wife and the hausmeister Mr. Kropp have been taking care of things, but haven't been able to really get things up to speed just yet. In light of the circumstances, we were moved into a new, larger apartment (twice as large, to be precise) which has a bathtub, balcony, and full kitchen with dishwasher. Unfortunately, the wireless issue has become an issue as only Carlos can get internet for any extended period of time in the apartment. The hausmeister has let me use his office (which is a small chilly room located in another building across the courtyard) for internet until he can get the gentleman who handles these sorts of things to, erm, handle it- although Herr Kropp recently informed me that this gentleman is currently busy with installing a new kitchen and therefor it might be sometime before we can get this whole thing straightened out. So far we've taken a few trips out into the city- once or twice out to dinner, and a long walk to Club Maria- yet another old-warehouse-turned-club where we saw Mouse on Mars & Vitalic. Needless to say, it was a pretty damn amazing thing. I ran into Kid606 (who I've been calling "unkie miguel" on account of the fact that he's been very accomodating of all of our silly touristy-type questions- despite the fact that he is a super star DJ). We're going to get cheapo bikes at the flea market on Sunday even though it is very cold, and I may freeze to death riding it back home. Carlos has been freaking out about visas pretty regularly. I had to buy him dinner at Schwartes Cafe a couple nights ago to get him to chill out. He seems to be doing better, having resigned himself to signing up for a language course in order to get the student visa. I think it's a much better plan that living under the raydar, as the german's seem to have some pretty serious fucking raydar. We're going to get registered on Thursday (the law requires that you register within 7 days with the foreign authorities office). This won't give us a visa or anything- that will all come later once we have a more permanent place to live and have paid for school. School, by the way, doesn't start until April. I think with 25 channels of public access documentary style work programming on the tele I'm going to be pretty bored for the next couple months, and unfortunately it's too damn cold to be frolicking around just for the hell of it.