Leisure

Dirty Summers In Berlin

Written by Kemi

Art by Coco

Everyone who lives in Berlin knows the drill: in spring, when it’s still grey and bleak AF outside, faraway friends will slowly start getting in touch. Because in their milder climates, spring has sprung, and with it an insatiable thirst for getting absolutely wrecked — and there’s no place on earth that’s better suited for that than Berlin, right?

At first it’s subtle. An IG like here, a comment there, a proposal that you chat for an hour sometime and before you know it everyone and their dog is going to spend a weekend at yours, and the best part is that you’ll be 100% convinced it was you who suggested it. Sneaky little bastards — but that’s exactly why you love them.

And so it happens, the season for dirty weekends in Berlin kicks off. Month after month more and more of your friends flock by, sometimes in groups, often knowing exactly which parties they want to attend. Despite their insane work hours, they’re weirdly clued in: they know exactly which party is the one to watch, and they’re on the guestlist of every single club in town. Nothing is left to chance. In fact, more often than not they know better what’s happening in the city than you do.

You go out with them, visit the newest, hottest bars and restaurants, see great art shows, go swimming in the lakes and hang out with their amazing, successful friends in their annoyingly beautiful Freunde von Freunden style apartments which, although they’ve only moved in a month ago, are already much better furnished than any of your homes ever was or ever will be. Of course, these dream apartments are located in your favourite neighbourhood, they cost next to nothing and were super easy to find. GOOD FOR THEM! You’d hate these people if they weren’t so bloody nice, fun and obsessed with making sure you have a wonderfully decorated cocktail in your hand at all times. You have a genuinely epic time, meet lots of new, great people. Life is fabulous… until Suicide Tuesday hits you like a sledgehammer.

After a summer of fun, visitors and more party visits than your body can handle, you start to feel drained and think: I’m completely broken. I’m barely functioning. Summer has been really shite here! Maybe it’s time for ME to go on a holiday? You check your balance and quickly realise that the dirty weekends took their toll on your finances. They’ve turned into dirty months on your bank account and now you’ve got no cash left to hightail it out of the Hauptstadt.

Disillusioned, you grab a drink after work, sit down next to the canal and feel the brisk autumn wind on your pallid body. You look at your goosebumps and think: WTF! I hate my friends! No more visitors. No more dirty weekends. This is my life and not one big, existential fear-inducing party. No more visitors, unless they’re here for a juice cleanse. Hotel Kemi has closed its doors for the season. You finish your can of G&T (the juice cleanse starts tomorrow), cycle home and just as you get ready to fritter away hours of your life finally watching the latest super-hyped Netflix event of the year, you receive a message from a good old friend you haven’t seen in ages. Slightly tipsy and very excited to hear from them you start chatting and before you know it, they’re unpacking their cabin bag in your bedroom…