First, I took Berlin.

Hamburg, July 27, 2001

I know I'm doing it in the wrong order, but the direction I'm travelling
in gets me to Manhattan later on. And anyway, Berlin took my wallet in
revenge.

After I last wrote, I grabbed something to eat, went back to my hotel,
watched a bit of TV and had an unbroken night of glorious sleep. You
will not believe what they show on TV here after midnight, incidentally.
From what I could make out it was some sort of gameshow where the
contestants ring up from home and play little memory games like "match
the boobies", and if they win the in-studio strippers (both male and
female available!) do their thing for a bit. Quite bizarre. And then the
sex phone line ads come on. Wooha! And even more strangely, it seems to
be on some sort of public access channel which hosts a geeky computer
show during the day. Or maybe that's not so odd.

So, well slept, the next day I took to the streets of Berlin and went
for a bit of a wander. I *like* Berlin. It's a really cool place. There
is a ruined (bombed) church in the platz marking the centre of the
shopping/commercial district, a massive park in the centre which turns
into outright forest at some points and a really cool vibe to the place.

That first day on the town I walked right through the park (the route of
the Love Parade) and up the monument at its centre. 200-odd steps, walls
covered in graffiti (despite the "No graffiti!" sign at the entrance)
and great views. From there I headed for the Brandenburg Gate and East
Berlin, past some beautiful and well restored old buildings interspersed
with modern ones. But when I got there, the bloody thing was all covered
over for "restoration", for which I have Deutshe Telekom to thank,
apparently. Bugger!

Beyond there is Alexanderplatz, the heart of the communist East Berlin,
featuring the TV tower which looks like a great big pin skewering a golf
ball. LP calls it abominably ugly, but I like it. It's a neat contrast
when you see it framed by gothic museums and churches from further down
the road.

When you get to Alexanderplatz the city starts to briefly look a bit
grim. But that soon fades when you realise all the 50s-60s tower blocks
have trendy clothes and record shops at the bottom of them and on some
the artwankers have been let loose writing visionary slogans in 2m high
Helvetica on the window panels.

Another thing I like about the place is the prices -- finally they were
getting a bit terrestrial, as opposed to Scandanavian-off-the-planet. I
went out bar-hopping on Thursday night and was charged 6DM for a beer. A
nice beer. I did the maths, and that works out at under 30SEK -- in
Sweden you just about can't get a beer anywhere for 30SEK, and they're
20% smaller when you do! The food is also good and well priced, as well
as their being some variety. I've actually been eating take-away Asian
mostly (it's been so long!) where you can get a meal and a 500ml can of
beer for about 10DM.

I was expecting a lot more activity in town on Thursday night than there
turned out to be, I guess everybody was saving themselves for Friday and
Saturday. I was walking around Berlin Metz in East Berlin (the trendy
bit), wondering why there were a whole lot of girls in corsets just
standing around on the streets (!) and looking for somewhere with people
in it to have a beer. I eventually came across the Tachaels building, a
combination of squat, gallery, artists colony and workshop and cafe.

There was a band in the cafe playing to a good size crowd so I stayed,
and I'm quite pleased I did as they eventually did a Hoodoo Gurus cover
:-). I think the lead singer must have been from Melbourne or something,
he was playing a Takamine guitar and even got out a didgeridoo during
the encore.

On Friday I set out to find the remnants of Checkpoint Charlie, which
turned out to be a big disappointment. At street level there is a
replica of the "you are now leaving the American zone..." sign and the
checkpoint itself, covered in American tourists. My opinion is that if
it's not the original then there's really no point and you might as well
watch it on video.

The original sign is in the Checkpoint Charlie museum next door but I
found that a great disappointment. It was really disjointed and out-of-
order and full of overwrought sculptural impressions of humanity's
struggle for freedom against opression (barf). Aside from some neat
methods of smuggling people across borders in small cars I don't feel I
really learnt anything about the history of the checkpoint or the
partitioning of Berlin.

On Friday evening I went out to a dance party, "Love from Above",
featuring David Morales (who you may remember I heard and loved at
Hogmanay) and Paul van Dyk (who I'd just managed to miss in Ibiza). It
was a Pacha promotion too, so that sold me :-). On the way I stopped
first at the square up the road (the one with the ruined church) to warm
up a bit, along with about 20 thousand other people. It was utter
madness. A whole lot of beer-selling caravans had parked themsleves next
to some music-pumping caravans, and a whole lot of people came down to
avail themselves of both. I had a couple of beers and a bit of a bop
before getting on the train to Collumbia Hallen, for the party.

It was quite easy to pick the people who were going to the same place.
"Is that a glow-stick in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?",
I asked the Swedish girl in the tight white pants and bright orange
fluffy leg warmers. Lots of people get dressed up for these events, so
at the last minute on Friday afternoon I decided to join them and make a
token effort. You've got no idea how embarassing it is to go to the pet
accessories floor in a department store and ask them if they've got a
mirror as you want to try something on! But even so, I was feeling
really under (or is that over?) dressed by the time I got there...

I had a pretty good time that night even though I didn't pull. The place
was full of bloody Aussies! I met a girl from bloody Glenn Innes on the
bloody dance floor, for crying out bloody loud! Met/hit on, whatever
;-). David Morales was as good as ever, though I'm still not sure about
the original gender of the official podium dancer. Nor that of the bald
androgyne handing out trinkets from the stage (I scored a Pacha scarf!).
I was sure there were way too many blokes in the audience though, but
you get that. Paul van Dyk in the big room I wasn't so enthused with. It
was all a bit too 'ard core for me, and the strobe was doin' my poor
lickle 'ed in. I got back to my hotel at about 7:00am and decided I
wouldn't last another half an hour until breakfast started so I went to
bed and slept until after one.

The Love Parade itself starts at two. The floats start from either end
of the park, drive to the monument/roundabout in the middle, circle
around and then basically do laps up and down the whole route until
11:00pm or so when there's a speech by the parade comittee chairman and
the playing of the official Love Parade Anthem for the year. Then if
you've got any sense you'll go home, if you haven't you'll go to another
party.

I started walking from my hotel toward the western starting end at about
1:45pm, admiring the parade of freaks. And then I turned the corner on
the maddest mass of people I have ever seen. I haven't seen numbers for
this year, but last year there were said to be 1.5 million people in
attendence, and I reckon they would have done that again easily. A
couple of million people in various states of undress, all partying
their little hearts out in the afternoon sun, to the sound of twenty or
thirty floats pumping out bangin' choons, plus some poor swamped family
groups with little children who'd obviously come out "to see the
parade"!

The Sony float was the best decorated (obviously, they would have had
the most money), as some sort of organic alien thing with cold-air
spraying tentacles and a machine on the back pumping out clouds of soap
bubbles. The Pacha truck had the best music (of course!) and the loudest
sound system which was ear splitting even with my plugs in, and the
Vandit/Ministry of Sound float had the most half naked chicks dancing on
the top of the prime mover. I basically walked up the road to the centre
where it was really crowded, followed Pacha back down until I fell
behind, then stayed in one spot and waited for it to come back, then
hung with it for most of the rest of the afternoon.

I met heaps of people who were amazed when they found out I was from
Australia. "you came all the way from Sydney for the Love Parade?". Of
course I told them all "Ja!". So in this fashion I spent the evening,
until about 11 or midnight when it all closed down. At this point I went
for a bit of a wander around the city with some girls from Frankfurt who
graciously declined my generous offer of accompanying me back to my
hotel, so by 2ish I started to make my way home.

I grabbed something to eat at a random fast food place, Mr Grill, whose
DJ was just packing up as I arrived (yes, really!) and then walked back
through the square which was a delightful morass of broken glass and
urine. A couple of million party animals sure make a hell of a mess!
Then I walked down the road a bit to the bus. And my night got well and
truly screwn up.

As I was standing on the bus platform, a short, balding Eastern European
man barged past me on the inside. I thought this was a bit of an odd
thing to do as the bus was in no imminent danger of leaving, and mumbled
something like "What'd you do that for, dickhead?" to myself under my
breath. Then I put my hand in my pocket to show the driver my bus pass
and discovered my wallet wasn't there.

FUCK! Was my first thought; I jumped off the bus. My second thought
was... "Hey, wait a second.". I got back on the bus and found the short
balding guy who was sitting there watching me looking for him with the
fear of God in his eyes. I stared him out for about 30 seconds before
asking in my best, deepest, calmest, you-really-don't-want-to-fuck-with-
me voice, "Excuse me, but could you show me what's in your pockets?".

"Why?", he said without breaking my gaze, still shitting himself, "Do
you think I took something from you?".

"Frankly? yes."

Of course there was only his wallet and some small change in his
pockets. If he had picked my pocket my wallet would have been down the
front of his pants or with his friend/accomplice who he was nominally
chasing onto the bus. But what could I do? Pick up a perfect stranger by
the ankles and shake him upside down on the suspicion that he'd picked
my pocket? Also, at this point I still wasn't sure what had happened, it
could have fallen out of my pocket onto the seat at Mr Grill and have
been picked up by the DJ.

So I got off the bus and went back to check. I remembered that just
before I had gotten onto the bus I'd had my hand in that pocket, idly
frobbing the film wind knob on the disposable camera which was also in
there, but I can't remember my wallet either being there or not being
there at the time. I'm usually quite sensitive to that sort of thing,
but of course I can't claim to have been 100% sober at the time so I'm
still not sure. My wallet was indeed not at Mr Grill as it turned out,
so I set back on the long walk home, my night conclusively ruined.

The more I think about it, the surer I am that I had my pocket picked by
that prick or his "friend", as he was distracting me. And that's what
pisses me off the most: the knowledge that I had him, but had to let him
go because I couldn't have been totally sure. I'm still not totally sure
of anything, of course, but I haven't lost my wallet in 25 years, so
it's just a little bit too suspicious. I don't look like a stupid
f*cking tourist (Icht bin eine Berliner, for all everybody here knows).
I Do Not Ever Leave My Baggage Unattended. I Am Vigilant In Crowds. But
the bastards got me in the end.

So that really screwed my mood on Sunday, as if I needed any help after
a full weekend's partying with associated lack of sleep. HSBC Visa card,
HSBC ATM card, PADI Open Water card, Hostel International card, NSW
driver's license, GO 25 youth card, 400DM in cash. The Visa and ATM
cards should be waiting for me at Arhus post office (*that* only took
four frigging phone calls to the UK to arrange, frigging call center
monkeys), half the cash I'll get back from my travel insurance (I had
just been to the ATM the previous day, hadn't I?) and all the rest is
replacable, albeit with a small amount of pain, except for the wallet
itself which was a gift from Osnat. I'm most pissed off about that, as
you can imagine.

What saved me from being totally screwed was the "Oh, Shit!" envelope
safely stowed in my backpack at my hotel, containing US$200 in
travellers cheques and photocopies of all the cards with their
associated numbers. That, and the fact that I happened to take my
American Express card out of my wallet the other day as I wasn't using
it at all. So I ought to have enough cash to get me to Denmark, and I
have 1000DKK cash left over from when I was in Copenhagen in my
"furriner money" purse in my backpack. If all else fails there's always
Western Union.

I'm now in Hamburg trying to live cheaply and not succeeding very well.
I'll stay here for the weekend (the weather's good and the beer's cheap)
and then head up to Arhus. So there will be one more mail from here, but
I should be fine and cashed up again by the time you read it.

Cheers, Robert.