Vic and I were complaining to each other a couple of weeks ago that although we’ve been in Berlin for a quarter of a year now, we’ve only gone to a few night clubs. I’ve been to Chalet, Monarch, Sisyphos twice, Kater Blau four times, and yet there are dozens of clubs I’ve never gone anywhere near. So, when Michelle text me last week saying she was off to the near-mythical Heideglühen for a day party on Saturday, I was well ready for mayhem. Mayhem I tell you! Continue reading
Travel Writing
The Berlin Diaries – Birthday With My Weird Family
Hey hey I had the most brilliant birthday and I’ve got to tell you about it while it’s fresh now and before a single blip of it is lost in the dank recesses of my memory because it was all so wonderful and I don’t wanna forget any of it. No time for mincing words, come on come on come on, let’s GO! Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 7.5, Venice After Dark
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Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 7, Venice by Sunlight
It’s 11pm and my last night in Venice has been spent in the hostel bar, after a lonesome meal by the canal on a candlelit terrace, where the waiter felt sorry for me and gave me free wine, with a wink. I was extremely humbled and grateful until the bill came and I found I’d been given free wine but charged 4 euros for a glass of tap water. Bastardo.
I was hoping to meet the Toronto girls from yesterday and chill, but they’ve gone to the opera. I had a look at tickets and they were around 40 each, so no. Instead, I sat myself at a central table in the hostel bar and nursed a beer, my eyes roving around the bar for a friendly face. A group of Spaniards in animated chatter, no; a rabble of droopy eyed Englishmen all attempting to charm the same one American girl, no; a middle aged Chinese couple knotted up in each other on the sofa, no. So that’s the kind of evening it was to be, then. I began to unpack my bag with a sigh, reaching for Kafka, my most loyal friend of late; a twisted, morbid companion, but a companion nonetheless.
‘How’s it going, mate?’ Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 7, Venice by Sunlight
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Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 6, Venice by Moonlight
Got up early, quickly dressed and escaped the snoring, smelly dorm, and skipped breakfast; no time and no money anyway. I’d arrived in Venice under darkness, and stepping outside and seeing the city in the daylight was a true and rare joy, one of those moments in life where you actually stop and say ‘whoa’ out loud, even though there’s nobody around. I kicked through the hostel doors with a yawn and a stretch, and I was greeted by the bluest lazy waters, easy young skies in a cirrus haze, majestic old buildings and barnacle clinging docks. Oh fuck yes, what a day. Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 6, Venice by Moonlight
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Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 5, Barce-Loner
Awoke alone and lay cosy in the dorm a while. Dragged myself to get ready, checked out and caught the bus across the city to Park Güell, as I wanted to catch the views in the midday sun. Entrance to the park’s centre is ticketed, and I was given a slot around midday. To kill time, I hiked up the hill behind the park and sat in the sun enjoying magnificent views of the city, it’s soft edge square blocks of rooftops and terraces, viridescent mountaintops beyond, and at the end of it all, sparkling ocean merging with the horizon. Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 5, Barce-Loner
Woke up from last night’s ‘nap’ at 8am. Had horny dreams and woke up humping the mattress, on the top bunk in a dorm full of strangers. Ugh.
Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 4, Barce-Loner
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Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 3.5, Paris
Yeah, I know I’m a few days later than I said I’d be in posting this. Shut yer cake hole and play this:
Right-o. Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 3.5, Last Night in Paris
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Drink, Play, Loathe – Day 3, Paris
Note from present Dan: The following happened on the same evening as the previous article. However, I felt it best to split the day into two sections, as my life/death contemplations earlier in the afternoon didn’t seem to mesh very well with the vomiting and aggressive dry humping that occurred later that evening. Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 3, Paris
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Drink, Play, Loathe – Day 2, Paris
Woke up at 3am because Aish, one of the Canadian girls, was talking in her sleep. Her mumbles continued for some time, then grew into tossing and turning, then thrashing, until at 4am she swung her legs over the bunk, dropped onto the floor, and sleep-sprinted out of the room in her knickers. Her friend Sarah jumped up and grabbed her, then must have remembered not to wake a sleepwalker, and simply followed her out of the dorm. I shrugged and fell back asleep. Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: The Trip
“Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
So, I’ve been on a trip of Europe, and kept a diary all the while. If travelling is anything at all, it is unpredictable, and the trip I expected to have was, as is usually the case, radically different to the reality. Modern life is a series of spinning plates, and the more you age, the better you become at keeping them spinning. I am young, and youth is wonderful, but the trade off of so much freedom is that fairly regularly, largely due to my own gross incompetence at being alive, my plates come crashing down around me all at once, and I am left lying bruised and stupid beneath a heap of porcelain. Continue reading