Pub Crawl

This could be the most embarrassing thing I have ever done in Berlin. And that really IS saying something.

After years of living here and joking about the dorkiness of pub crawls, conducted by masses of drunk Englishmen in football shirts, I realised last week that I'd never actually been on one.

So, I took the plunge and took part in an "Anti Pub Crawl" last Friday night. The idea of an anti pub crawl (as far as I could tell) is to visit a whole bunch of places that pub crawls don't normally go to. The locations were all pretty different I have to say: "Yesterday" on Schönhauser Allee, "King Kong Club" on Brunnenstraße and definitely the most amusing spot, the gothic bar "Last Cathedral" - ending it all in the club "Frannz" was a bit lame though. But anyway: I'm not ashamed to say that I enjoyed myself all evening. And, that I even discovered a couple of bars that I'd never, ever seen before. Perhaps I'm not really that "cutting ätsch" after all.

Fashion tourists

This week I've discovered a new favourite song . Although it's been doing the rounds for a while now, it really is a must-see. And, it's acted as a bit of an inspiration for this week's entry.

I think the reason this song struck such a chord with me (if you'll pardon the pun) is because living in Berlin full-time, I've started to notice an influx of very confused fashion tourists entering my adopted city over the last few years.

Take a look at the chap above for instance. Now, he's clearly making too much effort. The hi-top shoes and the embroidered jacket are already pushing the envelope. But the shoulder bag just takes the game too far. No genuine Berliner would ever do this. He is either a footballer for Hertha BSC and earns way too much, or he is a "fashion tourist" from out of town. I'm tipping the second option.

The thing about Berlin is: it's fashionable, because it is liberal in it's attitudes. Locals wear crazy combinations of things either because they don't have anything else to wear in their closet or because they have designed the clothes themselves. Most of the time they get into the clubs and bars wearing whatever they want, because people here appreciate a bit of originality. Now, that's cool.

I'm no fashion guru, but buying a full wardrobe of "cutting-edge" stuff in Shoreditch before you come across on your 29 pound Ryanair flight for the weekend is, I think quite clearly, not cool.