A wine bar where you can drink all night and pay whatever you like at the end. That'll never work, right? I was skeptical, assuming that the inherently stingy students who would surely patronise such a place would nudge twinges of conscience aside and top up their glasses with a week's worth of liquor, perhaps dropping a fiver in at the end. Yet the Weinerei of last Thursday night was visibly doing a roaring trade, banishing the doubts I had as to its viability - I suspect the free-flowing, and not particularly expensive, wine was in fact fortifying customers with a profitable generosity (myself included).
I'd previously heard whispers that Weinforum at Rosenthaler Platz was a great venue and eventually managed to generate enough enthusiam from a dozen fellow students to descend on the place mid last week. Organising events can be a bit hit-and-miss in a city you don't know, with people reluctant to venture outside of their suburb (granted, also a challenge in Sydney) - take my birthday for instance, where pounding rain and plummeting temperatures had us chaotically dashing to find a warmer alternative to a beer garden at the last minute. Somehow this time it all worked out, and we had good company from around the globe to complement the wine and share in the comfy sofas, merry mood and red wine-stained teeth.
Basically the concept of the Weinerei is that you pay 2 euros upon arrival for an empty glass and then help yourself to a buffet of a dozen red and white wines (not a beer in sight), and some simple food offerings (pasta, bread and salad) if that takes your fancy. Throughout the night, you can return to the buffet as many times as you want and then at the end of the evening, throw some cash into a giant green fish bowl to represent what you consumed. It was all very relaxed and (mostly) civilised - there was one mad dash to the buffet around 11 when the last bottles of the night were put out but we made it through the crush for a last drink. At the end, I contributed around 2.20 euros a glass, and the glasses are tiny, so I felt like that was pretty fair. It did tend to get a little hazy at the end though, and it's very likely that the warmth of the bar, the shrewd-looking owner perched by the exit and, of course, the wine deepen the pockets of many guests.
Two nights later and rounding off another successful week of fun and cultural immersion in Berlin was some reggae dancing on Saturday night. Berlin is generally considered to be the city of electro beats, something I generally try to avoid in favour of music you can groove, grind and sing along to. Reggae fit that description and so Daniel, Daniel's housemate Katrin and I headed to Yaam, a club next to East Side Gallery at 11:45pm on Saturday, to take advantage of the promo "Ladies free before midnight". Delighted to avoid the 10 euro entry fee, we barrelled on through the doors into a space that bizarrely kind of resembled a school playground. Strains of reggae came from a warehouse building in one direction, but this establishment also housed a couple of random stalls selling trinkets and food, kids' play equipment and...a beach, complete with an abundance of sand and beach volleyball. Cool.
We bobbed along to the music for hours, drinking Club Mate for energy and heading out regularly for air and a chat. Daniel 's uncanny ability to generally relate to and befriend Kenyans and a range of blokes from other African nations became apparent - there was quite literally a string of guys strolling past to clap Daniel on the shoulder, comment appreciatively on his dance moves and remind him to take care of his woman. Later that night, we even minded the store for one guy originally from Kenya while he went to have a boogie with his lady. He returned pretty quickly, which was very fortunate as we didn't manage to sell a thing and it was 3am and all very surreal.
We decided to call it a night when the sky's edges started to lighten and the energy drinks started to wear off. One of the beautiful things about summer in Berlin is that there are only about 6 hours of real darkness - the sun sets at around 10pm and it starts getting light before 4am. So we were home early by Berlin standards (11am is a respectable night out here) but pushing my stamina threshold in any case. I felt more satisfied after a night out than I had for a long time and enjoyed the sore knees and pure weariness that comes after a solid night's dancing.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen