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Thanks very much for your tips, gute Leute! Fortunately, our hotel was in the middle of Schöneberg and the Schwule-Lesbisch Strassenfest was on all weekend, so we just had to walk out the front door to be swept up in party-minded poofs and pretty policepeople. Hooray for Berlin!
Only passed through Lützowplatz during daylight hours, Jub, but we were en route to the Tiergarten which is lipsmackingly fabulous! A huge woodland in the middle of the town, with rivers and lakes and woodland paths leading to "Liegewiesen" which turn out to be full of naked German men and big, big dogs chewing frisbees. Could have spent every daylight hour there had it not been raining on every day but one, and we never even got to the gay bits, behind the Soviet Memorial and the far south west strip. The whole place seemed greener, round Schöneberg and Mitte at least. So many birds everywhere and only two magpies.
Passed by Hafen a few times but were always heading for somewhere or crawling home at 5 a.m. Does seem to be one of the popular bars, from the word on the street there. Smarter than many we did patronise.
Only got to Mitte during the day, to sight see. We will go back and investigate all the bars there and in Charlottenburg and Prenzlauer Berg. Hell, I'd go back just to see the same bars and clubs I did this time but I'm aware there was lots more we could see with a bit more time, that we never did.
Tom's Bar we dipped into but it was early on and probably much busier and more fun later. Spent a lot of time sheltering from the rain in a gay coffee shop over the street from there. I got a bit narked in Tom's when they suddenly changed the channel when I was watching the footie. German queers don't seem to watch it either.
Motzstrasse has lots to see and do, particularly the obligatory pilgrimage to Nümmer 17, where Isherwood lived during his Sally Bowles days.
Club Connection was busy, busy, busy, Masculine Petsi, judging by the queues to get in. Does have a perv clothing store attached which was open after midnight for that last minute clubbing necessity. Maybe for those who'd lost all their clothes in a darkroom. Hehe. Also looked a bit G.A.Y. so we went on elsewhere in Fuggerstrasse, which is hoachin' with leather bars and fetish clubs.
Never got to any saunas. Might have been driven to it by the dodgy shower in our room, in time. So much for the cliché of Teutonic efficiency.
Schwules Museum next time, I promise! We didn't get there till the 19th however, so wouldn't have caught your friend's show. They did have a display up and a stand at the StraBenfest. Our brief time in the old East was a bit depressing and grim. Need to go back and see the less crapularly Neo-Stalinist architectured parts.
Bengali, seems every place in gay Berlin is for elderly gays! Didn't notice the "mixed" bit much in any of the bars or clubs we did hit but that does seem a more likely contingency in Berlin. The street festival was full of all sorts, commingling and being just lovely... *Sentimental moment...*
And your link to the "darkrooms" list was prescient. Berlin was choked with choice of darkrooms and what fun we had! Particularly in the wonderful Scheune and in Mutschmanns, although the latter surprised us on Sunday night by being full of entirely naked people when we arrived.
Seemed like all the visiting Brits and Yanks then made for the same bar nearby to escape the "Naked Party" and we even met some lovely bondage boys from Chicago who live practically next door to us in London. In Berlin men seem to get away with fisting on a table by the bar and it doesn't draw a crowd of rubberneckers or people wanting to join in. The other clubbers just stand back, maybe watch a bit from a distance, and carry on with their own sociable activities. Much more chatting than you'd see in similar bars here but just as much shagging.
Prinzknecht was a great bar too, absolutely thronged, although we never investigated the back room. There was a nice wee place called Bears too, which was just like it says on the tin. Fat, bearded, German bears talking about opera... With leather trousers hanging from the ceiling.
Berlin is great. No licensing laws whatsoever. Same sex couples hold hands in the street, commonly. The way that queer men and women seem to relate and the inclusivity everywhere was remarkable; many more disabled people visible about the place for instance. And, happily, my rusty German got us by.
And only in Berlin would be have been getting wolf-whistled like that.  |
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