Parties & Concerts

Damage Done By Worms

(AKA, 4 days of going with very little sleep). Wow What a weekend. I need a break from all the go go go, but hey, if my weekend is any consolation, at least I’m young enough to have enjoyed it completely. There will be 3 entries posted in one day (Jan 28) so forgive me y’all – I wrote it up but didn’t have time to post.
Friday Night was a concert up in Pankow (clear the north end of Berlin) put on by a friend of mine (Jay’s) Band. I decided that if I didn’t have a migraine (which didn’t return, thanks to my nice friend Jose) I’d go watch them perform. Having mentioned it to Scott, we wound up with 4 of us heading up to hear some fantastic psychobilly/ rockabilly. It was Me (American), Kat (Kiwi), Brenden (Kate’s friend- irish but living in scotland), and Scott (Norwegian).
How to describe psychobilly/ rockabilly.. well, the best description I can give is that it’s a little like the 1950’s style music – on crack. The way people dress for the concerts is like a combo of the 1940’s with goth makeup for the girls, and the 1950’s james dean look but with weird fantastically colored mohawks and wedges for the guys. Let’s just say that in some ways, the costuming of the folks is as amusing to watch as the bands themselves – mostly becauase they can’t decide if they’re punk, goth, or 1940s/1950’s. At any rate, the first band was horrible, and we all got to laughing as we started with a few drinks. During the process of the laughter, Scott and Brenden decided to yell a few “ye-haw’s” thusly earning themselves the nicknames of “Bubba” (for scott) and “Lou” for Brenden. Jay popped over to say hi and let us know that his band would be on by about 11pm, and let’s just say that when the first band was done (50 different lyrics over the same beat/music – I swear!) we were ecstatic.
When Jay’s band came on, we were quite pleased to see better performers, better singers, and actually the crowd getting into the music more. Amusingly, a mosh pit started in the middle of the dance floor (with shirtless guys trying to slam into one other, followed by lots of hugging and kissing and then beer guzzling and more – yep – whole other show in itself) with music that I was cracking up laughing at. Somehow, the idea of a group of guys trying to mosh to a cover of “Reno” by Johnny Cash struck me as funny. At any rate, by the time Damage Done By Worms was done, we had had a great time and cheered them on for more.
Jay, the band did a great job – and all of us agree – we will be happy to go back and cheer you on some more.
No, it wasn’t exactly what the other 3 were expecting, but once they heard y’all, they really did have a great time and are looking forward to more concerts….
And for the rest of you.. check out the music at:
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Happy Hannukah!

Last Night was very cool. I headed over to JTW’s much anticipated Hannukah party. How he described it is much how it was. (Well.. except for the exotic fruit.. but we’ll get into that in a moment. ) A gathering of a bunch of non-Jewish folks to have latke, drinks, listen to some klezmer music and play with a dreidel. Oh and light a menorah. (because you have to have a menorah to call it a Haunnukah party.)

Pretty much, that was it. Only, at some point, some of the guests decided to go get some gluhwine mix (and sacrificed a few bottles of wine to the hot stove) and because money was leftover – some exotic fruits. Don’t ask me what any of them are, but I wound up getting photos of us trying a few – for better or worse – hideous face or quizzical expression.

Tasty... NOT!
Cecelia and Leah trying some strange fruit that turned out to be NOT so Tasty.
Chef Niall
Niall takes a break from preparing gluhwine (hot spiced wine served around the holidays here in Germany) and digs in to a bright pink fruit that resembles an onion on the outside.

 

Oh – we also got to catch part of a Riot at Hackesher Markt – from his 7th floor windows. Couldn’t see much, but the sounds, number of cop cars, ambulences and etc were impressive. Of course, that pretty much also explains WHY at midnight pretty much no one was at Alexanderplatz or Hackesher Market when that’s normally a highly traffic area due to clubs, bars, and various eating establishments.

Let's start a RIOT... Let's start a RIOT!
Finally, in honor of the holiday, I figured we should all sing a round of Adam Sandler’s most famous song…

Meanwhile, I’m going back to some exotic fruit. (UH GUys, are you sure I’m supposed to eat this? It looks like a hairy goat’s ball that’s been cut open….)

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WHAT TIME IS IT!?! AHHH!!!

Today’s episode in the life of a girl, her dog and a 2 year journey, brought to you by 2 lovely liters of strawberry daquerries between 3 ladies. (Watch as chaos ensues the next morning…)
After the Opera on Friday, I came home and managed to get 3 – yes 3 whole hours of sleep. I had mentioned that we should do a girls night or something, and on Saturday, Leah came up with a game plan. (Thanks sweetie!) We (Leah, Cecelia and I) were going to have strawberry daqueris, mexican food and go stroll up the ku’damm for the long night of shopping. Then, they would meet up with the guys (who were attending a concert) later and go on to a birthday party. (At which point I would head home since I had to work on Sunday.)
Now, forgetting that I had only had 3 hours of sleep (and feeling pretty good at 9 am on Saturday morning) I figured Yeah… that’ll be great. (mistake 1.) By 2pm that afternoon, I was fading fast. By 6 (time to leave work) I was exhausted, but figured I’d said yes, we’ll met up at 7:30pm and go out. I’m hungry anyhow, so it’s not a big deal.
Somewhere between 7:45 (when I made the restaurant) and started drinking daqueris (viola – mistake 2), and 9:30 pm (we ate dinner – Excellent Fajitas) we enjoyed the restaurant and had a good time just chatting and gossiping. I told the story of my Russian adventure in the black sea and winding up slightly sobering up in a glider over the sea (I’m still not quite sure how they got me in that thing!) and trying not to puke – at which point Cecelia got to laughing so hard she spilled her Daqueri on the table, which, of course, only made us laugh harder and prompted us (still giggling the whole way) to pay and leave.
With dinner over, (and feeling pretty good – let’s face it) we decided to head up to the Ku’Damm. This is the biggest shopping street in Berlin with everything from H&M to KaDeWe. It’s basically just shop after shop after shop of goodies. They had this thing called the “late night” where the stores were open till midnight and had special novelties (music, little kiosks for food along the street, high school drum bands) set up to enjoy. It was fun, and we took a bunch of pictures, goofed off, and etc.
Anyhow, I left and headed home, figuring that with the time change, I should get there before I was needed to be on call. (Things will surely go wrong – they have for 8 years, why not keep up the trend, right?) I made it home by about 1 am, and proceeded to upload the pictures I’d taken because I wanted the camera for Sunday. I’ll be honest, I was really tired by now, and I had had a little buzz still going (mostly sobered up though). My logic was that I’d go ahead and set back some clocks in the apartment before I went to sleep. It’s reasonable, right? WRONG. Let’s just say recipe for disaster – a-la mistake 3.
So, I started setting clocks back. I got the one in the bathroom, the living room, and the bedroom. I didn’t, however, get the one in the kitchen or my cell phone. That being said, I knew that my cell phone didn’t automatically change – so I was going to use that as my “backup” since I knew from last time that at least one (but not sure which one) clock had automatically switched before.
I went to bed – about 1:45am, and was sound asleep until the alarm. It went off, I got up, glanced at it (clock in bedroom) and yep, it said 6:30 am. It’s light outside, and I figure yeah – no big deal. Time change. Rubbing my eyes, and padding through the house, I see the clock in the kitchen says 7:30. The clock on the TV says 7:30. My cell phone says 8:30, the clock in the bathroom says 6:30. CRAP. Two clocks I set back automatically set themselves back. GODDAMN. I’m late, and missed my bus.
I hop on the computer (it says 7:30) and proceed to update it to make sure it’s really 730. Yep… *sigh*
I get ready for work anyhow and made it in by 9 am on the work computer.
Lesson Learned?
Don’t try to set your clocks back. EVER. Just wait until the morning after. Then, take the lowest hour and put that on EVERY clock. This way, you don’t wonder what time it is with 3 clocks displaying different times.
*checks her hair color* Nope, still red-brown. Guess that means I just had a blonde moment back there.
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