The Berlin Diaries – Eye Contact Forever

There’s always something going on here. Every day, it’s a simple matter of having a quick peek on Facebook or wherever, and lo, hundreds of events. Gigs, poetry slams, open mic nights, comedy, raves, free parties, art exhibits, light shows, performance art, you name it. Never a dull moment.

On Saturday, an old friend from Come Backpackers messaged me. It was Dave, the long haired English guy who is furious about Brexit. The guy I kind of accidentally smoked hash with in a park on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Dave sent me a link to an event happening that evening. I looked on the website and found that it was an eye contact experiment – one of the world’s largest, or something. I watched a video of one previous exhibition. Strangers in the street simply sat opposite one another and stared unspeaking into each other’s eyes. Seemed suitably weird for my evening’s entertainment. I went along.

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Denmark

My dad’s Christmas present to my brothers and I last year was a weekend break to Copenhagen. I’d met a few Danes travelling who were delightful, but I’d never given any thought to their home country – beyond being astonished at how fluent their English was, which as a general rule is better than my own slurred, expletive punctuated dialect. Continue reading