After promising myself I wouldn’t do it again, I took another dip in the Eurozone this weekend on a trip to Berlin. (Reason being, the trip was too good a value to pass up.) Of course I expected to see at least one museum, the Berlin wall and the other obvious sights, but little did I know the trip would be super alternative, and we’d see Berlin in a pretty atypical way.

On Friday, for instance, we went to this art gallery, where we saw perhaps the most pretentious art exhibition in Berlin: a sound installation. We sat in a dark room (only populated by a few spotlit rocking horses on a square of fake grass) and listened to a girl reading parts of a German poem in freaky voices for 20 minutes.

The entire idea was almost too much for me, and I wanted to hate it just out of principle. Should this gallery really make money by charging people to sit in a room? Does sound art belong in gallery space—a channel traditionally reserved for visual arts? When I found myself thinking these things, I decided that I couldn’t condemn the installation; it made me think in a way that “normal” exhibitions often don’t.

Moreover, when our Berliner friend explained the poem to us afterward, I found I could really appreciate the artist’s work in itself. The poem is “Erlkönig” by Goethe, a cool story about a father trying to save his dying and delusional son; it’s well-known by all Germans (they read it in gradeschool), and the author’s interpretation of the poem would obviously engage German listeners.

Fast forward to dinner on Friday night, when we went to a place that “doesn’t really have food.” Apparently someone just buys a bunch of vegan-whatever-they-want every day, cooks it up, and then charges the magnetized locals a few euros for all they can eat. Picture that all the non-us people in the dark place are wearing things like slim-cut leather and zebra-print leggings (men, that is) with spoony haircuts. Now imagine this set to a screamo death metal playlist and couple this with the fact that we were forbidden to take photos inside the building and the testimony of my friend that she saw someone cutting lines of cocaine in the bathroom, and you’ll have a picture of what this place is like.

Anyway, the food was really good. Really, really good, actually, but it lacked protein of any sort, and none of us were really satisfied afterward, unfortunately. I could have been really disappointed by this, but I was grateful for the really—err—rich experience.

After dinner, I saw a woman riding a unicycle while pushing her baby in a stroller. True story. I tried to take a picture, but I was a little slow with the camera.

The next day we saw some other parts of Berlin. (That’s a really interesting thing about the city; each district is so distinct.) We took a tour at the awesome Berlin Underground Museum (highly recommended) and I had some currywurst (yum). Later, we took a stroll through the annual Carnival of Cultures, which was just okay in my book. I would have thought it was way cooler if I didn’t live in a city that had such festivals more or less every weekend all summer long.

On Sunday, we spent most of the day at a really cool park/flea market where they sold everything from fine art to garage sale–certified garbage (like Smurf McDonalds toys, for instance). I picked up a few books and had a crepe with Nutella, like you should every day for optimal health.

For lunch/dinner—our last meal in Berlin—we ate at what was supposed to be an Indian-Palestinian restaurant but actually turned out to be a Sri Lankan restaurant. Again, the food was good, but it was lacking in certain (and by “certain” I mean “any”) animal products that would have made it excellent.

Anyhow, Berlin’s a fantastic city, and I’m glad I had the opp to go.

See more pictures in my Facebuch album.

Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, this entire country got flooded this weekend. Looks like some tragedy happens every time I leave Poland…