Raving Hosts (retroactive post)

Internet has been down for a few days...

I actually wrote this about 3 days ago.

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Too many to taste them all,
though I tried!

I now have only a few days left in the great city of Berlin. Again, I should have written daily instead of accumulating so much… 

But here's the inescapable conundrum: there is not enough time to both participate in life and also reflect/write about it! 

As my time here trickles down ever so steadily, I find myself filled with growing amounts of feelings and thoughts; and as much as i'd love to organize them into words, I still prefer being in the flow of things.

I cannot get over how beauty-full autumn is!

I cannot get over how generous people can be.

I wish I could stay long enough to get a better hold of the German language.   I really do find this language interesting.  It is so precise, so organized, such a perfect medium for philosophers, poets,  and writers to play with.  At least that's what I hear.  I wouldn't know; I can't judge by myself!

I wish I could stay longer, and go to one of those electronica/rave parties.  I had my chance last week but I didn't take it.  Even though I do not regret staying in to take care of myself and rest (I was in that dance project that weekend), I know that I missed out on something very unique. 

I met these wonderful people though couchsurfing, once again (I had done a search using the keyword "Dubstep"), and hoped the connection could lead me to a good dancing spot.  After all, Berlin is famous for its electronica scene… I so wanted to get a taste of it!  

My new hosts (seven lovely young adults around my age, students, travelers, activists, who share communal groceries and struggle a bit to keep the place tidy…)  were actually organizing a happening of their own, on the first night that I was to stay over!

When I got there I couldn't quite tell who actually lived in the flat, for there were many friends coming and going in preparation for the party.  (In fact, even as days went by, friends - as well as more couch surfers- just kept coming in and out, to hang out and say hello and share a few cigarettes.  It's just like that here: It's an open house.)  

Mein Haus ist dein Haus

I had been looking forward to this, but when the night came I had to honnestly check in with myself and acknowledge that my foot hurted way too much to go dancing.  What a shame!

For this thing was no regular club party.  It took place in the basement of an old disaffected hospital at the outskirt of Berlin- illegally that is.

People taking a breath of fresh air (not my friends' party)
while the music is still thumping!
(I walked by on Saturday night, and then on Sunday afternoon!)

No advertisement, no Facebook invite, no flyers…  only word-of-mouth…. 

And I still might have gone if it had started earlier, but it didn't take off until two in the morning!  At six o'clock, when the police showed up, they found about four hundred people dancing on the two underground floors of the hospital.  

This seems to happen regularly.  The police didn't do much; they just shut down the amplifiers and sent the people to bed… Those dancing rebels and their untamable thirst for life and creation!

German humor!