Rock Steady Baby

The summer here has been, to say the least, whimsical. The last few days we've been drowning in some of the wettest weather I've seen in a while. The whole environment is just cracking up. Parts of the Spanish countryside outside of Barcelona are burning uncontrollably while hurricanes and typhoons of hitherto unseen gravity are simultaneously pummeling coastlines in Asia and North America.


Last week, however, was very nice. Katja read about this Reggae concert in Berlin on Monday night and we decided it was a good excuse to go in. Plus I was still enjoying my birthday week (apparently I get a whole week to celebrate a single day I usually forget altogether). We met up with our friends Nicole and Dirk who live together in Friedrichshain and were so kind as to put us up for the night... and the next one as it turns out. Katja and I spent the afternoon shopping, in fact the next two afternoons were also spent shopping, but more on that later. Around 17:30 we hooked up with Nicole and Dirk and had some cocktails at this lounge, then went down the street and (thoroughly tipsy) had a killer Indian meal.

The concert started at 21:00 but we were late because dinner was so good and neither of us wanted to rush away from good food and good company. We crossed town by tram and then walked down to the Kulturbrauerei which is this cool, brick construction industrial park that has an enormous central space that is open air. The buildings all around it are populated with bars and lounges, stage venues and breweries. The concert was in one of these, but there was lots of other live music both inside and outside going on -- and people, people, people everywhere.

Gregory Isaacs was the headliner, but Barrington Levy was also there and so was Black Uhuru. We had missed Barrington because we wanted to finish dinner leisurely, but that was okay because we've already seen him once in Santa Cruz with Adrienne. The music was great, dancehall, rock steady... and then Gregory came out and just rocked the house. I finally got my cell phone working over here and I was able to ring Adrienne back in CA. I held the phone up for her so she could check the music out too.

After the show we desperately needed liquids and found this cool bar that had an experimental music group playing. Really mellow, a perfect spot for us to come down after a pretty raucous show. I had ginger ale.

We stayed at Nicole's place that night and got up and out around midday to go shopping (some more). I shop in earnest (and by shop I mean actually have an objective to purchase stuff) only a few times a year and I have to say we did damn well. I LOVE H&M. New pants, shorts, shirts, this killer white sport coat that was on sale and a steal... I admit I had a great time. Katja is a great shopper and found some rocking good deals too. We came back to Neuruppin three days after having left, overloaded with new clothes and our wallets substantially lighter.

Later that day we decided that we just weren't ready to head home and Nicole had offered us her room for as many nights as we wanted so we called up Jessi and the three of us met her at her place then headed down to this riverside lounge to enjoy the evening and a couple of drinks. This place was really on the river... replete with floating 'docks' that were haphazardly tied together and uniformly unsteady to walk on; but a gas nonetheless. Dig the pix.


Nicole and Dirk, one drink in


Katja and I, at least one drink in


Dirk, off the wall


Nicole and Dirk, two drinks in


Nicole, waiting for Samosas


River lounge


Fall in! Fall in!


We sat on the steps


Interesting wall behind you, don't you think?


Ruf mich auf mein handy!


Jessi and Nicole


Tripod-less...


Rock Steady Baby