Raining on Gay Parades

Spent my first day in Berlin today. After, spending most of my life in the US or medium-sized cities in Asia, it is admittedly a bit trippy to see a city with so many colors- white, black, yellow, brown, etc. The difference between the US and other countries is that even our smaller cities are like crayon boxes. But it's eye-opening to see these dynamics anyway.

So after taking advantage of the all night weekend metro and shuffling back into the hostel at about 5AM, today was sort of a late start. I am boycotting guide books such as Lonely Planet on this trip, so my guess about what to do was as good as yours.

The map I have shows a little line of the border of the Berlin Wall. Supposedly, there is like one rock left that tourists flock to but I wasn't about to ask reception where it was. Instead I pointed to a metro station that was near the wall and a Holocaust monument, and off we went.

My first clue was the man in the wedding dress with a towel wrapped around his head who was entering the subway gates as I was exiting them. Stepping into the sunlight, I was greeted by rainbows and house music. Crowds and broken glass lined the streets as sailors in assless chaps, men made up to look like Carnaval dancers, and dudes sporting three piece rainbow suits complete with tophats, gyrated by.

My traveling partner, the lovely Mme. Anne a.k.a. Butterfly/Cherry/Angel (mais en francais, bien sur), found it in herself to join the parade. I kept her attached to my hip, lest I should end up with no pants in some hash den with rainbow floor pillows. In fact, once she broke away for like a second and some bloke stroked my head. I'm no homophobe, but look don't touch, ese.

On the way, there was some crazy park filled with huge rectangular concrete blocks. Nothing seemed more obvious than hopping from block to block. Mme. Anne wanted to take a picture of the obnoxious American standing in the middle of this field of random blocks. As you get closer to the center, the blocks are staggered, meaning the heights change.

Cocky at first, I felt like Eddie Murphy in Golden Child by the time I was in a few blocks. Running my hand down the scar on my head, my stomach fell as I imagined my neck snapping when the side of my foot careened off the edge of the block on my next jump. Girl-impressing machismo doused, I decided to turn around. No matter because two cops were waving their Gestapo sticks at me, apparently telling me to get down. When someone is displeased with you and barks at you in a language you don't understand, it's always a little weird, but when it's German, it's uber-weird.

So, tonight at dinner. My boy AZ of Riga fame, living in Berlin, told me what the park was all about....It was that very same Holocaust memorial.

The story about it is that there are no plaques or signs anywhere indicating what it is. Also, to protect the blocks from graffitti, there is a chemical sprayed on them. Ironically, the company who made this chemical also made the gas for the chambers. Both these points have caused considerable debate about the significance of the monument. In a rush of good conscience, Nazi DuPont agreed to supply the protective chemical for free. Nothing says, "I'm sorry for trying to exterminate your whole population" like the municipal version of the consolation prize for the loser of the Showcase Showdown.

Either way, I felt like a huge bonehead. Tomorrow, I'm going back to wipe off my heathen footprints.

Went to a jazz club tonight. Berlin is a surprisingly cool city, and the company helps. Lots of the high school aged kids look like the stereotypical German punks depicted in movies. There's also absoultely no law about drinking beer in public, subway system included. Chomping at the bit to uphold the appearance of the fine country gentleman I am, I haven't exercised that freedom.

Tomorrow, I hope to visit this Turkish kebab shop/cafe I walked by yesterday. Loads of boisterous conversation and pickup games of backgammon are the draw. It's absoultely nuts how many kebab shops are in Europe. I haven't noticed any corporations yet opening the McDonald's/Starbucks version of kebabs yet, but it's not a bad business idea if you fancy living in Europe and running some honest, hard-working immigrants out of their livelihoods.

More in the next couple days...I think my journey heads over to Paris on Tuesday.