Night out in Berlin — and how

I believe that a city’s nightlife speaks a lot about the spirit of the people and the place. I had heard a lot about Berlin as an emerging nightlife destination in Europe from friends, in online reviews and travelogues. So I signed up to take the pub crawl to check it out for myself when I got there.

We reached the square in front of the designated cafe to start the pub crawl. It was close to two degrees and the wind chills weren’t helping either. My friend and I were wrapped in layers from head to toe but still couldn’t beat the chilly weather. Beer was the last thing on our mind. But in keeping with German tradition, our welcome drink at the crawl was a pint of Berliner. Shivering with cold, we gulped it down. Germans drink beer— come rain, come snow, they just drink beer!

Our guide was a young Australian girl who  had fallen in love with Berlin and stayed back. During my visit I heard many stories of people who had stayed back in this city. Not because they got good money or good jobs, but because they fell in love with Berlin.

Most of the city’s buildings and facades of monuments were rebuilt in heritage style and it was hard to tell that all this was just 20 years old. Rents were low and life was comfortable. Berlin’s unpleasant past with Hitler and World War II seemed to have made the locals more helpful towards and acceptable of outsiders.

Our crawl group was a complete mix, just like the local population. First, I noticed a bunch of loud Irish men who had come to the city for a bachelor party. Second was a group of Dutch men, relatively quiet and soft spoken. Our guide told us that Berlin pubs are open all night, smoking is allowed inside and you can easily take one for the road if you don’t finish your drink when you leave the pub.

That’s as free as it can get for a partygoer, I thought. So we hit the first pub. It was a dimly lit, tiny watering hole. Everyone ordered another beer and got a free round of two shots. I noticed a guy from Israel. He had had a fight with his friend and decided to join the crawl alone. Well, from the way he was sulking I thought he was gay and had had a tiff with his boyfriend. Anyway, we got to hear a lot about his views on the Palestine problem, and how nightlife rocked in Tel Aviv too.

The only German in the group was a 20-year-old boy named Victor (he could drink legally at that age) and in typical German style he had taken it upon himself to make the visitors feel comfortable. Two more rounds of shots and we were set for the next destination. We got out and as we walked across the road, I felt warm enough to get rid of my jacket. I guess it was all the alcohol but I wasn’t complaining.

After we left our next pub, we realised how alive the streets were. The city seemed transformed in the night. There was no obvious distinction between East and West Berlin. But in daytime, dark history was everywhere — in museums, on roads, in the last existing stretch of the Berlin Wall and in the holocaust memorials. But at night, everything changed. The city was modern and futuristic.

In the next pub, two Irish guys introduced themselves as Sara and Michelle and that’s what we called them all night. We danced, took pictures, shared stories and Victor got us drinks. The Israeli guy was no longer gay because he danced like a man!

We left the last club wearing only T-shirt and jeans. And we walked the empty streets of the city with the joy of going sans layers of clothing after freezing in the first two days of our Berlin visit. That’s when we understood why Germans drank so much beer!

And when we woke up the next morning, we were confused as to exactly how many pubs we had gone to. We didn’t remember the name of a single one. It was all a haze. Apart from the momentary loss of perception, the tough German names had a lot to do with it too! But what we did remember were Sara, Michelle, Victor, Tel Aviv and the Berliner. I guess Berlin nightlife does rock after all.