Brunhilde! Berlin

On our last night in Berlin we were taken by Danilo and his group of really cool friends to a local part of the city. The beer was cheap, the bars were amazing, and it was really nice to be in a big city again and just name the style of music we were in the mood for and be able to find a bar playing it live.

On this night, I also vowed to fulfill the goal I had set out for myself two years ago when I first met Danilo, which was to meet a powerful woman named Brunhilde in Germany and win her heart and marry her and spend the rest of our lives watching her plow my fields and manhandle me when her urges took over.

After a few drinks in the bar, I revealed this plan to all of Danilo's friends and forced them to help me write a list of phrases that would help me capture Brunhilde's massive oxen heart forever. In the end I had three questions that were my litmus test for Brunhilde's love and one romantic request. They wrote out the phonetic version of what I was trying to say as my German was still quite rusty and any mistake in my come on lines could be fatal. As I became louder and drunker, I began to change into that charming (obnoxious) person that is loved so dearly all over the world. One German, actually turned to my sister very early on in the evening and told her in an admiring way, "Your brother is REALLY offensive". I had found my way into the heart of these people.

One girl, whose command of English was weaker than the rest, was incredibly worried that her friends were having their fun with me and were translating innocent phrases into this nonsense. She just couldn't make any logical sense of what was happening. She kept trying desperately to warn me that they were making a fool of me and I kept trying to explain to her tonight I was hoping a woman would first wrestle me, then love me, which only confused her more. Overall, the entire group began to worry for my safety and kept warning me to make sure I didn't say these things to any girl:
1) with a boyfriend
2) who really did look like a Brunhilde

My sister was secretly translating her own phrase in order to protect my life in case it approached danger, but kept this from me until the next day.

Unfortunately, by night's end, I had found no Brunhilde and no trouble either. The only girl that I managed to express my German too turned out to be Greek and had no idea what I was talking about. Alas, I've returned from Germany the same way I came, in one big, lonely, (but in tact) piece.

Overall, the night was still fantastic. We went into one punk rock bar which was an "Illegal", which meant it wasn't an offical bar at all. The entrance was through a hole in the sidewalk and the interior had a 6 foot high ceiling and was full of puddles and dripping water. The whole thing smelled dank and looked like a homeless squat. I also couldn't get over the fact that it was completely legal to carry beer anywhere in Germany. After every bar we just took our last beer with us to the next one, and finally for kebabs. I couldn't stop hiding my beer and feeling like I was doing something wrong.

Was it human vomit or the shit from a dinosaur? We just don't know.

The 'illegal' punk rock bar. The hole used to enter the bar posed no fire hazard because the bar was so dank that it was actually dripping filthy rain (or was it crying punk rock tears?) from the ceiling.

Agnieszka. The dirtier the bar, the more beautiful it is to her. Her ideal European architecture? Fuck the eiffel tower. Give her a bombed out hospital from the second world war now on the verge of collapsing and covered in shit and fungus, now serving as half crackhouse, half Euro-squat and half concert venue.

Me and a man whose name I cannot remember, but can only assume to be 'Deiter', the most German looking man ever born. He was actually studying to be a pastor and explained his heavy drinking and smoking to me as the need to understand the problems of the common man.