Friday Night and Saturday Morning: Julian's Birthday, Nippes Markt

With help from some afternoon napping, Kelly and I managed to make a late night of it on Friday. Julian, an agricultural engineer from Brazil and classmate in my German course, had his 28th birthday Friday. We met at Rumbar, a small salsa bar. I think there were like a dozen of us. Anyway, after a while there, we all migrated to Subway, a club on Aachnerstrasse, where Latanya (also from my German class) was planning to do some MCing. As it turned out, the club had no microphone on hand for her, and at 2:30am or so, we were all a bit too tired to wait for the DJ to finish his set, but it was a really good time anyway. The DJ wasn't really all that spectacular, but he played some Rakim so, y'know, bonus points.... We took a few pictures, but missed a lot of faces, including Kelly's (!). I think we all look wasted (and that I look borderline homeless), but actually that wasn't the case at all.

Here's birthday boy Julian (left), Bruno (middle, also aus Brazil) and Claudia (right, Venezuela).

Note Rached's “quotation marks” here. He'd seen people do this, but didn't know what it meant. I explained and, in typical Rached form, he morphed this into the evening's new dance move.

Again, we're not trashed. Honest. I'd tell you if we were.

Next day (today) we slept in til 11 or so, but still made it to the Nippes Markt before close. This was quite a victory, as Kelly and I twice failed to check out the market the previous weekend. The problem the first time was that I really had no idea where the market was, beyond that it was in Nippes. That's like saying “in Ballard,” and we wound up lost and empty-handed. The second time we found the market, but it was a Sunday, and neither the market nor even any neighboring pubs were open for business. Today, however, we made it in time to buy a Kilo of Zwetschen (small, tart, dirt-cheap plums currently in season here), some eggplant, some bananas, and a pair of polka-dotted shoes for Kelly. I know we still stand out as gringos, but we think the price on the egglant was inflated a good bit above the marked price. Kelly was a little surly about this, and I had to remind her that we'd shelled out a meager €4 for the shoes and a week's supply of fruit combined. Also, about a block from the market Kelly spotted a cute cafe with what look like really good quiches and – miracle of miracles – a choice selection of Belgian beers. It was a little early in the day for such indulgences, but count on our coming back.

We're fast approaching dinner time now, and we've managed not to give in to the desire to nap. I'm thinking it'll be an early night though....