5 Days In Berlin

To clear my mind because I'd started going quite mad

I’ve never really been big on holidays, I find them ultimately more stressful than just simply choosing to do nothing at home. Which I do most of the time anyway. I’m more of a ‘go to the seaside for a quick constitutional’ type. Which I can also do at home, because I live by the seaside.

Though in the middle of June I went on a solo holiday to Berlin for 5 days, as my mind had over the course of a few months become scrambled egg and it was suggested it might be good for me to have a little change of scenery. Which I’ve done before and it does help clear the cobwebs, but that was a trip to Edinburgh in December a few years back, and with the amount of hills taken into consideration - I feel like that’s just adding to any emotional upset.

So because over the past few months I feel like I’ve been slowly unravelling like an avant-garde jumper that’s vaguely in the shape of a man - Berlin was picked. Because I’ve always had a good time there and I enjoy the galleries and tourist bits. It’s also safe and easy to navigate on your own, it’s fairly affordable, people mostly speak English, I enjoy the shops (OH MY GOD THE SHOPS) and again - I just really really like it. So that was booked and because I am a foolish man who doesn’t often have to book his own hotels and flights, as that’s a work thing - I booked the wrong days at the hotel, so changed that and paid the difference. Then decided I wanted to fly a few hours later than booked, so changed the time for a small fee. Then paid a slightly larger fee when I realised I’d changed the time but I’d also changed the day, to the original day that the hotel was booked for which I’d also paid to change. Very calm lead up.

I had no plans, other than one day I was going to have lunch with some friends who live there. Though I’d need to find something to occupy my 5 days, as my two favourite European activities are no longer applicable to me - Drinking and smoking. Oh to have a large glass of wine outside of a cafe or restaurant and chain smoke myself into crippling emphysema. Berlin was always the ideal place to smell of stale cigarettes and drink so much I couldn’t remember how to use my thumbs. I’ve also never been interested in techno, which I wouldn’t dare mutter there for fear of getting deported to Leipzig with the other Goths. And since I’m no longer a boozy cow and if I’m staying up past midnight it’s gotta either be for a show or sex- so I’d need to find comfort in its other key factors which as far as I’m concerned and applies to my interests - involves wearing a lot of black and looking at depressing art with even more depressing history. Also having nice little fancy lunches.

My arrival day on the Monday was slow. Arriving early in the morning - I meandered and walked and day dreamed and pottered. I felt useless and lost and aimless for hours and it was a pleasure. Though when you take away my language, I essentially become Mr Bean. Someone clearly pointing at a card machine gesturing for me to tap here to pay and instead I choose to not understand the simple instruction and instead just slam my bankcard into a nearby pastry, deciding to now act like it’s my first day on earth and I’ve decided that my function on this planet is to be a complete fucking moron.

In my delirium, this was also the day I made my first holiday purchase. Which I think can only accurately be described as clown shoes. Though a friend said ‘left your big key and Donald and Goofy at home today?’ (Reference there for the real ones). If you’re going to buy large black shoes anywhere, I’d suggest Berlin would be the place both aesthetically and also most likely to be carrying that kind of stock. I think as well as being a head clearing trip for me was also clearly destined to be a clothing related one, as I fall more and more into looking like I run an arts centre that only programs nightmarish and unenjoyable durational performance pieces. Which I must clearly be giving a vibe off of, because when I arrived at the hotel the woman working the front desk who checked me in made sure to let me know that a Marina Abramovic performance exhibit was in town and the next performance was due soon and if I left now I’d for sure make it in time.

Tuesday I got up early and went to the zoo and it was fairly empty, so I skipped round saying hello to the animals. “GOOD MORNING SWEETIE!” I call out to the vultures tearing apart a rabbit. “MORNING MY DARLING ANGEL!” I bellow to the rhino eating and shitting at the same time.

I walk through a bit where you can go in with some baby scavenger birds who think I’m trying to take their half eaten mice away from them. I see flamingos sleeping stood up, tucked up pink feathery balls with legs. I see penguins swimming so close I could grab them, but didn’t know what I’d do once I had so thought probably best not to. I went into a nighttime section to see bats. I see a tapir and I don’t know what’s going on there but I assume its absolutely none of my business. I see lions and tigers and bears, oh my. I go into a petting zoo bit where a black goat leaves a group of Japanese tourists to come stand next to me and lays his head on my leg and I feel chosen but also like a stereotype, a goth pushing 40 grinning like a satanic competition winner with his new friend. I befriend a second goat who seems to enjoy having his chin rubbed but also enjoys shitting at the same time and I just accept this is what must happen. There is a sheep that doesn’t wish to be bothered, and I also accept this. I buy a giant stuffed bat toy in the gift shop after a day of skipping around and marvelling at the non existent good lords many creatures and maybe internally tackle a little bit of my torn morality around zoos. But ultimately I had a really lovely morning.

Later in the afternoon I went to the photography museum with its Helmet Newton exhibit, which I can’t really show you because it’s mostly naked women but my god was it beautiful. I get a book mark, some postcards and a tiny book because the big exhibition book would land me in easyJet excess luggage jail. I lunch, then go off in search of more wonderful garments and I get myself a black linen shirt that looks like a linen jacket is growing out of the side of it, and 2 pairs of socks - one far more expensive than the other and far more money than you should spend on socks but it’s my holiday and if I want to declare bankruptcy over socks so fucking be it. The lovely people in that shop then send me off to a perfume boutique a few streets down and I get a perfume called Megamare by Orto Parisi that I can only describe as smells of the sea but also musky and my god do I love it, in all its overpowering and possibly to some noses offensive smelling glory. Me and my clown shoes and strange linen shirt and expensive socks will smell of musk and seaweed and sea salt and we shall be happy because it is a holiday. I end this day with possibly the best pizza I’d ever eaten and I wish I could remember what the place was called because I would share to you the good word.

Wednesday I traipse my way to the new national gallery and it turns out they’ve got a fucking Weimar Berlin exhibit on and I didn’t realise?! I see a flyer with one of my favourite paintings of all time on it ‘Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber’ by Otto Dix and I just assume it’s a promo thing because that’s sometimes used on general German art of the 20’s promo and NO NO NO IT TURNS OUT IT’S THERE ON LOAN AND I THINK I MAY CRY. So I go into the Weimar exhibit and see the actual real life versions of various paintings I have in frames around the flat and there is Anita looking gorgeous and red and glorious at the end of the room and I bask in her debauched glow and I know this trip was worth it for this moment, which I didn’t even know was going to happen. I go around the rest of the gallery looking at depictions of sadness and misery and pain and grief and I feel the cobwebs moving from my mind, because I’m doing exactly what I should be doing in Berlin - wearing fantastic clothes and looking at utterly miserable art done by people who were classified as degenerates by fascists.

I remember a cafe I really enjoyed on a previous trip was only a short walk away, so I go and find it and order a fancy 20 euro lunch and I scribble so many words about my day into my diary that no one will see even after I’ve popped my proverbial clogs and left this mortal coil.

I’m not a proficient and exciting traveller by any stretch of the imagination and I have absolutely no desire to be Anthony Bourdain or any variation of. For the most part I am entirely the opposite of adventurous. When I started travelling internationally for work, if I wasn’t accompanied by whoever had brought me out there or who had been designated to look after me while I was somewhere foreign to me - I would just sit in the hotel. I would make no attempts to discover or sightsee. I would sit in the hotel room, I would drink In the hotel bar and I would smoke cigarettes wherever they allowed me to smoke cigarettes. It took me years (and smartphone evolution) before I even did short meanders away from wherever I was staying.

I also have allergies. I’m not an exciting eater. I’m a lacking formal diagnosis but highly suspected autistic. I know what I can eat and I know what I like, so what I had for lunch every day in Berlin was Thai food, except for the days I went to the cafe I knew near the national gallery. And evening was either pizza, which for some reason in Berlin was easy to find vegan and gluten free!? Or Indian food. Which is generally speaking incredibly reliable. I don’t have desire to try new things when I’m somewhere on my own because that would involve asking questions and doing things, and as we’ve already covered - when we take away my language I am a total fuckwit. Instead of asking clearly “Ist das glutenfrei?” I’d probably just hand them my passport and set it on fire, or punch the cafe owners wife by accident or admit to a crime I never committed.

But in terms of just DOING things, I’ve gotten so much better and this trip was the very first time I’ve ever gone to a foreign country on my own purely for a holiday, with no one meeting me on the other side and with no major commitments. It was a way of testing myself and refreshing my eyes and making me experience new things, even if between those new things I ate a tofu thai curry every day and went to the same mediocre cafe on the walk back to the hotel, because it was the one place nearby I knew did a vegan GF muffin and the coffee was fine.

In those three days up to that point I’d accumulated a ridiculous 50,000+ steps. So I think I can consider that a success. I walked. I saw. I said danke schon to the people in the supermarket when I bought my morning smoothie.

Thursday was for seeing friends. Friends who live in Berlin, some internet friends I’ve never met who happen to be in town for work and then later on ones who happened to be visiting from London, who I never even see when I’m in the UK. Delicious food, delicious company. I can’t tell you anything about that day because we probably slagged you off terribly. Though know our karma is coming soon and it will be righteous and just and we shall suffer for all the dreadful things we have said about you, even if you deserved it.

Because I’m neurotic my brain refuses to let me do much of anything on the Friday, as that’s the day I’m leaving. So I exist in a constant state of wait mode and eventually force myself to go on a final wonderful meander where I make a pilgrimage to Comme Des Garcons and buy some shorts that when you’re standing still look like a pleated knee length skirt. And my last port of call before heading to the airport was to visit the grave of Marlene Dietrich and to have a solemn moment, which I’ve done pretty much every time I’ve visited, as that feels like the done thing for me.

I left Berlin tired, poor, well dressed, smelling like seaweed and salt and musk, and perhaps feeling a bit happier and more clear headed. So if you would like to buy any merch or a ticket to a show or sign up to my patreon, that would be fantastic. I’ve got a mortgage on some socks to pay.

I don’t know if the trip made me feel less like I’m coming undone, but it for sure was a pleasure. It was nice to challenge myself to exist with no work purpose in a place that culturally and artistically influences a huge part of the work I do. To let it feed me as a person and a tourist and a human and a spiteful little shit slagging off mutual acquaintances over a cheap lunch to get a few even cheaper laughs. Would highly recommend.

One of the people I met while I was there was Brett Seiler, a wonderful artist from Cape Town who was in Berlin with his exhibit ‘Friends and Other Lovers’. We’d spoken online so I went to the gallery to meet him and he very kindly gave me a private tour of the show, which was wonderful. Wonderful to see but even more so to hear him explain everything himself. As we left the gallery to go get a coffee, he slyly grabbed one of the beautifully carved wooden cigarettes from his exhibition and put it in my jacket pocket. So at least I did get to have at least one cigarette, and even got to bring it back with me.