Sleepy time in Berlin

Mmmmm... vulnerable.

Now this is really more of a warning than anything else, or at very least a reminder to myself that I need to calm this whole Berlin thing down a little. It's a little past 3:00 am on a Sunday morning, and I'm not in the slightest bit drunk. The only problem with this state of affairs is that my body just isn't having it. 


I think one of the key things about Berlin is that it's very much a party town, but not in a amiable mother kind of way – that allows you to stay up late at the weekend, and merely tuts regretfully when you come home with a skinful. No, this place is more of an S&M dominatrix – she'll chain your balls to a fence, and beat you until you like it. 

I cry when I don't get what I want...

For example, no-one seems to have a bloody job in Berlin. Indeed, I'm not exactly Mr 9-5, but the effective result is that every night is balls/chain/fence night. Even if you're not planning on going out, and have sauntered over to your mate's house to catch up, have a bite, and find out how her recent trip to France was, you'll still wind up shitfaced in her local, pulling out one of your two lame magic tricks at the local goth at four in the morning.


Of course, you go to sleep at about 7am, wake up at 2pm for 'work', vowing never to touch another drop of Berliner in your life, and somehow wind up at the local beer festival within mere hours. 


By 'you', I meant 'me' (or, rather, 'I').

...I cry every night.

You see, it's terribly easy to get into a routine that absolves one of any kind of cognitive activity or responsibility here. As long as you don't run out of bog roll, you're kind of alright. Everything that offers vice – pubs, kebab joints, dealers, clubs, Spatkaufs – never bloody closes. I can leave the house right now and buy enough booze, fags, drugs and crisps to pave my way straight to oblivion. Now contrast that with trying to buy – god forbid – something useful, like a screwdriver, guitar strings, or a bike pump, on a Sunday. You can't do it. 


Then there's other people's parties. Now, I sleep like I've been shot in the face with a 12-gauge, but even I have trouble sleeping through some of the, frankly incredible, noise created by our lovely neighbours. You pretty much get a daily reminder of what it means to be human: sex noises (clearly fake and embarrassingly short this evening), babies crying, kids partying, fogies having barbecues and, I dare say, I've heard one or two people dying thus far.    

Insomniac fridge food is the kind of
thing that gives you the shits
just by looking at it.

The result is a city that doesn't sleep. Not in a romantic "New York, New York," sense, but in an oily, panicked insomniac sense. It'll stay up all night, occasionally getting up, looking in the fridge, getting depressed and going back to bed.  


So, like I said, my body just isn't having it. I had a lovely, reasonably wholesome day today, and I'm being face-palmed by my body clock for it – the big hand no less. You have been warned.