BERLIN!
Which, after this trip, I will reterm: Bizarrelin. After another fun-filled travel day, we finally checked into the hotel and headed out! On the way to meeting some friends at an Irish pub, we passed a striking church that was bombed during WWII. The city has left it as a sort of memorial and it is quite dramatic at night with the uplights shining on it.





After the Irish pub, we decided to relocate to a place called “Koda” or something which is an underground cavern like path with 15 bars strung together. Completely bizarre – nothing like I’ve ever seen before. A huge maze of make-shift bars and horny adolescents making out everywhere - there’s no air conditioning and not really any air flowing, 1000 sweaty kids a fraction of our age, smoke, loud music and male and female stripper”ish” performers pouring shots off the front of the stage when they aren’t dancing. Geesh, how do I end up in these places?



Oh...and look at this silly girl, drooling over this muscular, beautiful, hot black man....ha! She probably thinks he's giving her a free shot because she caught his eye. Oh....that's so weird...I have a shirt just like that and she's got the same funky coloring in her hair as me...hmm...

This place was certainly not what we had expected when we asked around for a fun place to go and hang out….but that is what the journey is about! We have more laughs about the outlandish places we end up at then anything else! However, a newly 33 year old person can only take so much of this crap before the sweet lull of the hotel room beckons - the bags under my eyes are beginning to outweigh the ones I drag around!


So, the next morning on the way into work, we've been forewarned that this venue is going to suck, and it's covered in mosquitos. Low morale + malaria = Good times!
Our bus turns into a very small neighborhood street with quaint houses and gardens. At the end of this street is a red gate where a security man stands. Once he opens the gate, we proceed for a mile down a bumpy, one-way muddy road surrounded by a forest of trees, vines, swamps, and probably a few dead bodies. Very bizarre, very creepy.



Finally we emerge into what looks sorta like a venue. It’s an amphitheater surrounded in the most rickety cobblestone you can imagine - not exactly easy to roll cases around on - GOBBLESCHTOPPER! (the horribly misspelled German word for fork lift - it's just so fun to say! Gobbleschtopper!)



As we walked up a path to get to the side of the stage there was a secret, protected entrance that led down an underground cement bunker that emerges stage center.



As it turns out, this is where Hitler used to address his officers during WWII, which is why it is so hidden and so protected. More creepy, more bizarre.
We noticed some holes in the wall that had been filled in and were told these were for snipers to protect this "illustrious" leader.

And, as if on cue, then came the rain. Creepiest! Bizzarest! Places like this freak me out - you can feel the history in the air!
There are gentle reminders all over Europe of WWII and the Holocaust. Right next door to our hotel was "checkpoint charlie," where people who were allowed to cross the Berlin Wall made the dangerous trek. Of course the wall and checkpoint are no longer there, but they have memorials and pictures everywhere.



Another day of working in the rain that plagues us (more plastic, more patience), some late night repairs, then back to the hotel where I had a proper German dinner of pork knuckle and beer. Looks gross - but tasted great!

Another successful show, another sunrise load out, some laundry, and then off to the airport for more "Adventures in Mass Transit While Trying Desperately Not To Kill An Orchestra Member With Their Own Instrument..."
See ya in Stockholm....Ice bars & Vikings?!?! Ooooh! Excitment galore! haha