another day

Ok, so I keep thinking I'll have a boring day, and then some exciting shit comes up so I have to blog about it.

5/18

So, we woke up in this radical space at like 6. Vanc wanted another hour of sleep so we set the alarm back and woke up at 7. We put on our packs, left them a note and two of Yyks's stickers, and set off on our way. We went back to the same spot except further down the road, close to where the the Autobahn starts. We waited there until 11, getting no ride offers, and several people yelling at us or flipping us off, and then left to use the internet as I had replied to someone's rideshare offer and their plan was to leave at 3pm.

I checked my email and there was nothing from then, but I was not feeling much like hitching, so I thought on a hunch I'd ask the train person about the train I had reccomended to me, the "Happy-Weekender". I did and the deal with it is it's 33euro for up to five people to ride the city trains as much as they want on Saturday or Sunday. We decided we'd leave, hang out a bit, see if we felt like continuing to hitch, and come back to the station that night if we didn't. We sat around by the fountain. We sat in the internet "cafe", we sat in the park in the middle of the city. We sat and we sat and we sat. We didn't feel like hitching more after the events of this morning. We decided we'd take the weekender as it only amounted to 11euro a piece... and if we could find two who wanted to travel with us, even less if they felt like paying.

So we got the tickets, and posted on the g8 listserv that if anyone here wanted to get to Berlin, this would be the way. And now we had a new dilema. It was 7pm and we had until 5am for the train to come. What to do? We sat in the park for an hour but got bored of that and went to the train station to watch the trains and do some hardcore waiting. After like 30 minutes we were fucking tired as shit (very little sleep this whole trip, never more than 4 hours, 2 hours being standard), and we were starting to discuss getting a room.

Before we could decide either way, two anarcho-punx who were at the Subhumans show were walking around the train station, lost. They didn't recognize us from the show, but they recognized us as american punx. They came up to us and asked "are you americans?" and we said yes. "Do you know where the youth center is?" he asked, and we said no. Truth be told I didn't (/still don't) know what a youth center is. When I picture it, I picture a Boys and Girls Club or something. One of them, who I later learned was named Obi, who was decked out from his hat to the cuffs of his pants in Animal Liberation patches explained that one of the bands playing that night was from america. They were called blackfire and that name sounded incredibly familiar to me, but I couldn't place from where. Obi's friend (snutzeiger, I think was his name we later found out... he tried to explain the joke inherent in his name but I didn't entirely get it. Best I can tell, that's the word here for a spice similar to nutritional yeast or something) asked us what we were doing tonight, and we told them. They were surprised and asked if we'd rather join them searching for the show, and we said yes.

So we got up and started walking outside with them. They were asking random people on the street where it was, and one eventually told them which metro stop to get off at. So we got on the metro and rode for quite a while. It was a frightening ride because we hadn't gotten fare and there was security on the train, but I'm pretty sure the security was anti-terrorism security, and they never talked to us. While on the train Snutz told us the other name of the band, Asrael, which also rang a bell. Saed remembered that Shane had listened to Blackfire and I had mistaken them for Creed. We also talked about the different scenes in our cities and stuff. At one point they were talking in German and I was able to glean what they were saying with my knowledge of german (which is rapidly expanding)... Snutz were saying "Are they anarchists?" to which Obi replied "They're vegan and one is with the syndicate (iww), they must be." To which Snutz said something reminding Obi that vegan doesn't necessarily mean anarchist and Obi agreed.

When we got off the train Obi started asking people on the street again. Most people had no idea, but then we ran into some punx. Obi asked them and they replied in English that they were going there now. We followed them and when we got to the door, the people taking cover were older, and so it kind of reminded me of a Boys and Girls club. Snutz told them where we were from and they got very excited. They were really glad to see someone from the states for some reason. They showed us a place where our packs could be locked up and we went into the show were Azrael was playing... and they were fucking RAD. They were some pretty straight-up street punk stuff and pretty political... plus they had some goofball songs street punx are known for "Stay true, stay punk, stay oi!, stay drunk". Plus their songs were like 80% in English. Plus, once inside the venue part of the place, we were further confused as to what a youth house is. There was a no smoking sign, which was literally the first we've seen since we got to Germany (but people were still smoking) and the people there were in two distinct groups: The punx and the kids. The punx were just the punx, same as the punx anywhere... but the kids were different, they were like 14 and had system of a down and linkin park and rammstein clothes on. Also, the place had a bar (though pretty much if a place sells anything here, it sells alcohol also). We went out side with Snutz while we waited for Blackfire, and talked about Nazis. They don't have more than one or two Nazis in Frankfurt, but if you go out into the outlying countryside you find 20% or more of nazis. There are some nazi skins in berlin, but not many. Snutz gave us some stickers... they were a play on the "Good Night White Pride" Patch... they said "Gute Nacht Burschenpracht", which Snutz explained meant "Good night, fratboy" and the picture was of a punk beating up a boy in a suit. Snutz told us that the fraternities here are all in league with the far right and some even with the nazis propper. Plus they're homophobes and sexists and jerks here too. Then a scumfuck came over and was being drunk and macho and sort of trying to drive home the point "Just because you're american, doesn't mean you're better than us." Point well taken. We went in for the Blackfire.

I liked Blackfire's message for the most part "no borders, reclaim the earth..." but their music kind of sucked. It did sound kind of like creed at times. Whatever though, people seemed to enjoy it. I only really was annoyed when they started talking about petitions. That was the only tactic they mentioned and they spent like 15 minutes trying to convince people that they work.

5/19

They finished around midnight, and the last metro left at 1, so we had a bit of time, but wanted to be sure we made it, so we started to leave. We asked Obi if he'd be coming back with us (Snutz had already left). Things kept sidetracking us though, we talked to Blackfire about the g8 (they won't be there, missing it by a day!), the older folx who run the venue wanted to buy us drinks... we had juice. And Obi took forever saying goodbyes, so eventually we told him we had to leave and left. He arrived right at the moment the train was leaving and luckily made it. Him and his friend (actually the person seemed to be burgling his time but it's hard to tell in another language) absolutely insisted we come clubbing with them (though it was a club that plays punk). We declined just as vehemently as he had insisted, and they gave up. I gave obi my email and he said he'd see me in Heiligendam. I didn't know he was going to be there, but now I'm excited! Obi was very nice.

When we got to the train station Vanc fell asleep up against his pack and me and saed walked in circles for 3 hours. It was too cold to sleep. Then the train showed up and we got on. There were 3 connections, and we spent the whole time scared of missing our stop.

We arrived at the Berlin Zoo at 1:30pm. We called someone who had offered us a place to stay until Sunday (Hanna). Her roommate answered and gave us directions. We took a long and windy subway trip through this huge fucking city. This massive, enormous tremendous, city. The population isn't quite as high as NYC, but the amount of people taking public transit at midday is staggering. Also this city has 12 boroughs and is just under twice as big geographically as NYC. It's funny Frankfurt reminded me of Portland in a lot of ways, and Berlin reminds me of NYC in a lot of ways... it was like a repeat of the last trip. It also is full of spikey punx. By which I mean I saw more yesterday just commuting than exist in all of Portland.

We got to Hanna's place and met Hanna and her roommates, one of whom is named Suzanne. We asked where we could get vegan food and we were referred to a chain called Bio-Foods, which seems very much like New Seasons. There we each got a type of tofu and a grain and bought it and sat down and ate. We wanted to eat first because we were actually slightly ill with hunger and shopping seemed like a bad idea then. Then we got back into the store to do some more long-term shopping, but we couldn't find anything that seemed like it'd be ok to travel with. Fuck. Also we were tired as shit, and so we got some dried apricots and granola and went back to Hannas. (Oh yeah, we took Karl-Marx St. to get there, that was funny. We're in East Berlin at the moment. One of the main things I want to see here is a big statue of Marx and Engels.) On the way back me and Vanc argued about whether or not it's worth it to expend energy looking for a place to stay tomorrow, he said it would be better to just sleep in a park. I've slept in a number of parks in my years, but this town is huge and crime-ridden. Crime-ridden in both the good and bad way, which means pigs and which means muggers. I'm uncomfortable doing that, and we were kind of angry at each other talking about it. I feel like my safety is paramount to me. I'm still a little upset over that. When we got there Hanna was gone but had left a note with radical things going on that night and places to plug in and stuff. It's hard because of the language barrier to pick up on a lot of things, but the implication may have been that we should use those contacts to look for a place to stay. Once there Vanc checked his email and Seda was in Berlin and had no place to stay, so was going to sit at the main train station until we met her. Vanc asked if she could stay here overnight and they said yes and Vanc left to get her. I woke up to her hugging me muttered some questions and got answers I've since forgotten.

I woke up again at 5am, checked my email and started blogging. At 7am I was caught up! And that is now! Yay, caught up on the blog for now, I'm actually very excited, but here's some technical notes on the blog:

Now that I'm in Berlin, for security reasons I won't be giving any more specific information about travelling until it's done. I can't tell you when we're going to leave or how we're going to get there or what city we're going to next. We also haven't posted any pictures, this has been for the reason that we lost our usb cable, but Seda has one. I need to ask the group if it's a good idea to post the photos or not, but we'll see. Today I think we'll go to the meetup spaces and see what we can do with ourselves to plug into this campaign.