The musings and misadventures of a girl unprepared

Saturday 25 April 2015

Kill Your Darlings!

Last Sunday I actually managed to get out for my first bit of exploring since I arrived in the city nearly three weeks ago. As my friends and I have already done most of the usual touristy things, we wanted to do something a little more 'off the beaten track', so we decided to follow my 'Franzi Guide to Berlin' which my awesome bestie, who is originally from Berlin, made me as a leaving present from Mexico.




First stop was visiting the theatre she used to work at called Volksbühne and buying a mystery ticket to a show so I could spy on all her friends who work there. I chose a show called 'Kill Your Darlings! Streets Of Berladelphia', mainly because of the catchy title and the fact that it was only an hour and a half long. It's a pretty alternative venue, where they give out free matchboxes with slogans like 'Still Alive' and 'Fuck Off' branded across the front in shiny red typeface, and all their flyers are A5 stickers of the play titles with descriptions on the back. As a student willing to sit anywhere, my ticket cost just 6€, which I later learned was an absolute bargain.



I took myself on a solo date night to see it on Wednesday, having no idea what I was letting myself in for. In short, it was a monologue critique of life, love, capitalism, communism and the self (or at least that's what I got from it, but I could be entirely wrong), with the main actor gallavanting around in nothing more that rainbow glitter leggings, surrounded by a gymnastics troop. There's singing and audience participation and a very bizarre use of stage props, so it ticked all the boxes for me. I'm not completely fluent in German, so unfortunately I missed some of the key lines and jokes, but nonetheless I had an amazing time. Nothing like what I expected, I'll definitely be going back there soon.


After buying my ticket, we hopped back on the metro/underground/tube/whatever-it's-called-here to Eberswalder Straße in search for the promise of 'the best pizza place! supercheap and open until 4am'. Although it wasn't quite 4am, the promise of the best-super-cheap pizza was definitely appealing to four hungry students. To eat out in London on a regular basis as a student, you either need to have super rich parents or be willing to spare a kidney to the black market. Berlin, however, is no where near as pricey. An ENTIRE pizza costs just 3.90€ (2.90€ if you just got a plain margarita) and it was delicious too. Honestly, I have never in my life been so happy to buy a pizza. So if your looking for a cheap eat near Mauerpark, Ebenswalder Straße next to the Sparkasse is where it's at.

We then headed off to the famous Mauerpark, beers in hand, to check out what was left of the flee market (it was getting kind of late by this point) and enjoy the various artists who were dotted around, whilst lounging around in the rare North European sunshine. 


Open-air karaoke which basically consisted of lots of tourists embarrassing themselves in front of a large audience. Great fun to watch though.



These guys were great! Live drum set that you couldn't not dance to. Serious festival vibes.

By the time we ended up leaving the park, the air was getting nippy and the sun had began to sink behind the high-rise flats. Still stuffed from our super tasty pizzas and one too many beers, we tottered back to the metro, sleepy eyed and satisfied with the days adventures.

Aside from going to see the show on Wednesday, my week consisted of nothing more than lots of going to school and getting lost. Nothing out of the ordinary really. I'm still taking it slow at the moment, because the culture shock between here and Mexico has been a bit overwhelming. So more day exploring and a mystery concert tonight with Greg (Matthew E. White anyone?) should hopefully make for another chilled out weekend.


A building I came across that is on ALL the postcards, when I got lost looking for Volksbühne. The text reads 'Human will can move everything. This house used to be in another country'.
I love getting lost.

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