the world has turned and left me here

big meh-loh-nays

Past tense: last night Eric and I ate at an Italian place in Berlin. Had wine, spaghetti, and some appetizer dish with tomatoes and basil. Our waiter was a burly guy who spoke German with an Italian accent...quite confusing. We were scoping some chicks that walked past and I looked up and realized that our waiter was standing around scoping them too. After they had passed Eric and I were trying to reach a verdict, and the waiter joined in. "Nothing," he said, cupping his hands over his chest. "I lika them...witha big meh-loh-nays." Eric and I drank to "big meh-loh-nays."

As we passed the Amsterdam Cafe, I in my Amsterdam shirt (not being able to resist the temptation of a nice clean shirt), lightning struck the building beside us, loudly and unexpectedly. There was no rain or anything at the moment. Just flat, gray, unmenacing clouds, so it scared the heck out of everyone around.

Whenever we remembered to, we pressed the first call button on the apartments we came to. A trail of crime.

Walking around later, we went through a small courtyard. Strange, other-worldly sounds were emanating from some place below us. We descended cobwebby steps, ducking pipes, into a landing. Beer bottles and random junk laying around. Through a window we could see the keyboardist of the musically-formless ensemble running his hands up and down the thing, braps and twangs accompanying him from a place we still couldn't see. Guess it was just a band practicing. On the door was a poster of a young William Burroughs. I tried to peel off the top layers to get the poster for myself but ended up peeling off part of Burrough's face. Felt bad, and apologized to him. "Sorry, I shouldn't have done that." Nearby, a surrealist film theater.

Present tense: am heading into Berlin for some grokking. Punk-looking girl across the way grokking me.

The Berlin Ostbahnhof, and to a lesser extent every other major S station in Berlin, looks like the belly of a giant metal and glass whale.