lupestripe's lair

Things aren't going well professionally right now, with my main client serving notice for the end of October and a second client being caught up in this PHP hacking nightmare. As a result, starting from this week, I have a fair amount of time on my hands. Money is still incredibly tight, but with the Deutschland Ticket, all regional travel is paid for. Consequently, I have decided to try and see some reachable sights on the rare days when the weather allows. Wednesday was one of those days.

I had wanted to visit Ludwigslust ever since we swung by Schwerin two-and-a-half years ago. The main draw there is Ludwigslust Palace, which was built in stages throughout the 18th century. Starting out as a simple hunting lodge one day's ride from the capital of Mecklenburg in 1724 (Ludwigslust literally means Ludwig's Joy), disputes between Prince Christian Ludwig and his brother over the succession of the Mecklenburg Duchy prevented this from growing too much. There was a video exhibit about this dispute in the first room of the tour. In 1765, Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin made Ludwigslust the capital of the duchy instead of Schwerin, meaning the castle was significantly enhanced in the late-Baroque style. Completed in 1776, it is a rather squat but no less grand building. It also sits in its own gardens, which were a pleasure to wander through on a sunny autumn day. Indeed, the setting sun casting wonderful colours on the autumnal leaves made for some great photographs, while it was also fun trying to find the mausoleums, grotto, and the newly-reconstructed Swiss House amongst the many trees. Worryingly, there were frequent signs talking about 'risk to life' from falling trees, but everyone seemed to be ignoring these so I wasn't too concerned.

The advantage of going to any place off-season on a weekday is that you largely have the place to yourself. Indeed, I toured around Schloss Ludwigslust and tourists were definitely outnumbered by staff. I only saw five other tourists during my stay, with me having most of the rooms completely to myself. This meant you could pretend to be a duke yourself, living in such opulence. Many of the rooms had original features - particularly the porcelain heating system which was a 19th century addition from a Berlin-based manufacturer - but the reconstructions were also faithful. The sumptuous velvet wallpaper was perhaps the most striking, particularly as every room had a different colour and thus a different vibe. Most rooms contained various portraiture which I largely skipped over - those explanations were in German and I find portraits stiflingly dull at the best of times - but some of the ceiling and floor panelling was also wondrous to observe. Of course, the highlight was the exquisite gold hall with its Greek-style columns and wide open space, which would have made banquets a feast. Today, there were a few rows of chairs and a grand piano sat in the corner.

The whole tour took just over an hour, which was just as well as the castle shut at 4pm. Considering it was two hours away from Spandau by regional train (I could have gotten a fast ICE which would have gotten me there in 55 minutes, but then that wasn't free), time was tight but I did manage to see everything I wanted. The staff were super friendly too, while I had to clean the soles of my shoes with an automatic brush shoe cleaner, which was the first time I have ever had to do this. There was an audio guide but it involved downloading the Mecklenburg-Verpommern app from a QR code. I did do this, but then it didn't work when I tried to load it up. This is a shame as there was a children's version too, denoted by a fox wearing headphones on the explanatory signs that were displayed in every room. Fortunately, these were in both German and English, and were enough to get an understanding of what each room was. Some of the main furniture and artwork was mentioned here, while I was happy to pass through the portraiture as I have said. The main artwork room was a bric-a-brac collection of basic art pieces, which was quite underwhelming. I do think the original art was destroyed in a fire though. The signs also told you about what was original and what was restored, with a video montage in one of the rooms showcasing some of the restoration process.

Wandering around the main gardens was fun, but the more interesting areas were out front. This was where I started, approaching from the Bahnhof, which was about a 15-minute walk at the northern fringe of the town. The main cobbled Platz outside the castle is used as a small car park and thoroughfare, but opposite the castle sits the Kaskade, a small fountain on one edge of the square that utilises the water from the stream which flows directly behind it. The stream is at the same height as the Platz, so the fountain is cut below it, which makes for an interesting sight. The sound of flowing water is quite evocative too, with there being quite a watery presence in the town overall. Indeed, there is a pretty fast-flowing canal that cuts its way through the place, while the Catholic church associated with the castle sits on its own man-made moat off to the western flank. The sound of the water of the Kaskade can also be heard when you are looking at the statue to composer and double-bassist Johannes Matthias Sperger, who moved to Ludwigslust in 1789 and died in the town in 1812.

Opposite the castle, around 500m away across a grassy square hemmed in by cute houses that look like they could have once been stables, sits the Evangelical Stadtkirche. This is huge, built in the Greek style with a massive PX on the top. It only becomes more imposing the closer you get to it, although sadly it was closed. En route, you walk through the Gedenkstatte, a burial site dedicated to 200 victims who died at the nearby Wöbbelin concentration camp. Each grave is marked either by a cross or Star of David, with the memorial commemorating the humanitarian actions of the paratroopers and glidetroopers of the US Army 82nd Airborne Division who liberated the camp on 2 May 1945. Walking through this simple dedication while walking to the church evokes quite a heavy feeling.
 
It was around this time that I was feeling dizzy, and felt I may need to call the trip off and go home. However, I spotted a Penny supermarket and thought maybe a little bit of lunch would help. While walking there, I stumbled across a more local shop called Konsum, in which there was the Bäckerei Ickert. This place had the usual German sandwiches, all annoying containing cucumber and tomato, but I did enjoy their Mettbrötchen with finely chopped onions. I also got a Schenke and a Hanseaten, two shortbread biscuits with jam in between, with the one on the top iced with pink-and-white icing. I sat on their outside seating to eat my makeshift lunch and for €6 for everything, not only was it incredible value, but it was one of the best tasting lunches too. This did seem to cure me of my dizziness, although I am not sure from where it came. It may have been just general tiredness - I had had a glass of wine the night before which woke me up for the toilet four times overnight - or my high levels of stress. I'm probably so gunked up with cortisol that it's having a detrimental effect.

The castle was closing at 4pm and while they reassured me that the grounds were open all year round, I didn't want to risk it. It was also getting dark by the time I left, and being in heavy forest was probably not wise, not least forest which posed a risk of death. I decided to check out the town itself, having gone the direct non-scenic route earlier that day from the station to the castle. Schloßstr. is the main street leading up to the palace, albeit off to the side for some reason, and on this street there are some neat little shops and eateries. The demure town hall is also here, sat opposite the grander Postamt - its red bricks and turrets dominating this part of the street. Tucked in one of the back streets there was also the Literatische Stein. There are apparently four of these simple white stone blocks, but I only saw two of them. They look like crypt coffins in a church, except they display quotes from key people about the history and architecture of Ludwigslust. The second was near the main roundabout upon which there sits a statue of a woman of a horse. The two Literartische Steine I saw were for Garinson and Heimweh.

Ludwigslust itself is a small, rather quiet town with little going on. There was little to do and see beyond this, although I did notice how many signs were on display promoting democracy as a participatory act and extolling the virtues of diversity. This made me feel comfortable here, while there were quite a few 'Kein Bock Für Nazis' stickers on lampposts too. Considering the two main Ludwigslust Wahlkreise both voted AfD very comfortably in last September's election, maybe my comfort was misplaced. Still, everyone I met was friendly and tolerated my German too, so it was a nice day. As the RE8 regional train was every two hours, I ended up having a 50-minute wait back at the station after I had ticked off the remaining sights - the canal, the Stiftskirche with its outside bell in a wooden frame, and the Palais Bülow which was just a house. It was quite cold waiting for the train and I was surprised by the number of freight services that rumbled past. I was also delighted to see Hula Hoops have now reached Germany, although I am not shocked to discover their 'Original' flavour is Paprika. At least I got a decent seat on the journey home - on the way there, it was a vestibule affair - and once I had picked up some beers for Wolfie (where I had an in-depth conversation with the sales assistant in German), I headed home. I was tempted to drink the one beer I bought from the 'avec' shop at Ludwigslust station, but I fell asleep on the train, then didn't have time to drink it. With  the recent alcohol ban at train stations, I wasn't sure how I could get an open can of beer from the train (where drinking it is legal) to outside the station (where drinking it is also legal) without arousing suspicion on the platform.

I am hoping to do a few more day trips over the coming months, at least until my work situation improves. I am applying for jobs and searching for new clients, but it is quite a slog. Major changes will be coming, I feel, as this cannot go on. In the meantime though, I am hoping to make the most of my current free time.

I have been a fan of Jet Lag from the start, even getting a Nebula subscription to be able to watch it early and without ads. To convince someone like me who is subscription averse is no mean feat. I was aware that a few furries were into it, including Blujay as we had discussed it many times. Once the Hide + Seek game was released, we mooted the idea of playing it around Berlin, but it wasn't until this weekend that this dream was finally realised. This was largely down to Tungro, who I had seen wearing a Jet Lag hat at the Yorkshire Furs Summer Party back in August. Just like babyfurs and their special hats, I knew the connotation, prompting an in-depth discussion about the series. This then led onto us playing a game ourselves, with the first two weekends of October being suggested. Cut to a few weeks later and we had arranged to spend this weekend playing the game around Berlin.

Having been halfway through the current Japanorama series, I had to re-familiarise myself with the Hide + Seek rules by watching the show around New York City on Thursday night. This served as good preparation for the weekend although the half bottle of wine I drank during it did make for a groggy morning afterwards. Blujay travelled on an overnight train from Frankfurt on Thursday evening, but we couldn't really host him in our flat until our work was done on Friday afternoon. Tungro, meanwhile, was flying in from the UK. His flight was delayed by over an hour, scuppering the opportunity to visit the Fuerst Wiacek brewery, although the inclement weather was doing that for us anyway. Meanwhile, Blujay was understandably tired having had little sleep on the train. He arrived just as we were finishing work at 5pm, and I took him out to get a doner via the bins while Wolfie finished work. We then had a nice hour-long nap while we waited for Tungro, who rocked up shortly after 8:30pm. He hadn't eaten, while Blujay had, so we decided to stay at home and order pizza. We went with Pizza Max, largely because they did interesting pizza and had dips, but the over €50 price tag for two large pizzas and four dips was taking the piss. The sucuk one was quite nice though, the spinach one less so.

We discussed the basic gameplay of Jet Lag while we ate and discussed there was an online group who was playing the game at the same time we were. They too started at Friedrichstrasse, a place I had chosen largely due to its central location. They were tipping off at 9am though, while we were going to start slightly later at 9:30am. The game has three modes - small, medium and large - depending on area. As this was the first time we had played Jet Lag, we decided to keep things simple and stick to Zone A of the Berlin transit network. This meant we were playing the Small game. This seemed like a good idea, but many of the questions weren't available to us, so next time we'd likely do the Medium game over Zones AB. We also tweaked some of the rules slightly to better fit with our area. The nearest airport question, for example, makes no sense as there is now only one functional airport in Berlin. We also added a question about nearest cardinal point station (Gesundbrunnen/Nordkreuz, Westkreuz, Sudkreuz, Ostkreuz and Hauptbahnhof) although oddly none of us ever asked this question.

An early start necessitated an early bedtime, with Wolfie moving to the office to play VR late into the night. I slept fitfully, as always, yet somehow managed to get up for 7:45am. A quick breakfast and ablutions saw us get to Friedrichstrasse for bang on 9:30am, but we decided we didn't want to rush into things. Tungro fancied a coffee, so went to a local Coffee Fellows where he ordered two bagels and no coffee for some reason. Upon getting his beverage, after sharing a bagel that was more bread than cream cheese, he ended up spilling water all over his battery pack. This resulted in frantic cleanup and a delayed start, but by 9:50am he was in his preparation period, and shortly afterwards, he was ready to Go Go Go! We filmed this video like in the show, but ended up running off in random directions, making it look weird. We also made sure to turn our tracker on, so Tungro knew exactly where we were. (We had rolled two dice on the train, with the person with the highest roll being the first hider, hence why Tungro went first. I threw the lowest).

Tungro had 30 minutes of running time before we could chase him, giving us 30 minutes to strategise. We sat on a bench and thought through our initial questions, deciding upon a thermometer with the hope of splitting the map. Once the time had elapsed, we set the coordinates of Friedrichstrasse then had to get 1km south-east. This would split the game area in half, reducing the area we would have to cover. I discovered it was quicker to walk to Unten den Linden then hop on the U5 to Museumsinsel, which is where we stopped our thermometer. As Tungro had five minutes to answer, we continued on to Alexanderplatz, knowing there were many connections from there. The answer came back as 'colder', which was something of a surprise, but this meant we knew we had to head north or west. With the S-Bahn right there, we decided to get on board, only to have to get off again due to a medical emergency at Friedrichstrasse. In 45 minutes, therefore, we had done a triangle just to get back to where we had started. This scuppered our plans somewhat, so thinking on the hoof, we headed south to join the U7 at Yorckstrasse. En route, we asked for any building visible from the train station, and were returned with a white-looking building. This looked similar to many on the U7 line, so I got out the Google satellite view and started scrolling up and down the U7 looking for this structure. At Yorckstrasse, we headed west, asking for a picture of the Widest Street in Tungro's hiding zone as we did. Frustratingly, but unbeknown to us at the time, we actually went through his main station at this point as we were heading towards Adenauerplatz. However, once we had gotten there, we realised we had made a mistake and turned back round. The street didn't look right for a start.

We were toying with another thermometer, but in the end, didn't need it as we managed to identify the building. This saw us get to Kleistpark, where we were greeted with a serendipitous situation - half of Tungro's hiding zone was park and half was residential. A selfie, therefore, would narrow things down and it was confirmed he was in a park. By this point, we just started looking, but were worried by the lack of curses being thrown our way. We were later to discover that he had had a poor hand and wasn't able to play any. We searched a small park to no avail, but decided to check out the main park, in which sits a huge stately building. Blujay needed to sort out his bag, so we had to spend a minute or so doing that, after which I managed to see Tungro hiding from behind a small truck. Tagging him was easy and with a few paltry time bonuses, he recorded a time of 1 hour 36 minutes.

We had a short debrief by this point, as well as wandering up to some local toilets. We noticed there was a rather neat market going on, but many of the food posters were AI generated. Also, none of the #2 toilets were working, so we had to content ourselves with the urinals. We discovered that Tungro had been filming himself doing some of the card pulls and vlogging in general, which made for nice footage to watch as we decompressed. Then, we rolled the dice to see who would go next, and discovered it would be Blujay. He had his requisite 10-minute preparation time, then darted off, leaving us in the park.

His round proved to be very challenging, and he played a blinder, largely because he caught a bus to his final destination. I also made a few rudimentary errors, including thinking his widest street photo was Bismarkstrasse and spending time going all the way there. His photo of a visible building from his train station also misled me over here too, while the torrential downpour once we had reached Sophie-Charlotten-Platz also hampered us. From Kleistpark, we did a thermometer, again with the hope of splitting the map. We discovered we were colder, necessitating us to turn back the other way. Again, we did this strategically, choosing coordinates within Kleistpark and then at Yorckstrasse, giving us a west-east boundary that bisected the map north-south. We went on one stop as we waited for our answer, with Mockerenbrucke being on the west-east U1/3 line. On discovering we were colder, we hopped west on the U3, getting out at Augsburger Strasse. This is the first station in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Bezirk, which is the next question we asked. Upon receiving a positive answer, I was swooned by the Bismarkstrasse route - as I say mislead by the main road, which I really should have checked on Google Maps before going up there (we asked the widest road question shortly after getting the confirmation on Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf). Around this time, we walked up to Wittenburgplatz to be more central, again needing a station with many connections. While there, we were struck with the first curse of the game - Curse of the Egg Partner. We had to buy an egg, who became a team member who we had to look after for the rest of the run. Fortunately, we were near a local Edeka, so acquiring the egg wasn't difficult. Alas, we could only get eggs in boxes of six and spent a bit of time opening each carton and wobbling the eggs to see which ones were more tightly fit. We then designated one as our team member, drawing a face and hair on it in pencil. Before this, of course, we actually bought them with me in the self-checkout queue and Tungro in the regular manned queue. His turned out to be quicker, so he ended up paying for the eggs.

We got back to Wittenburgplatz station having only been mildly inconvenienced by the curse. Tungro had wrapped the eggs in his coat, which he had taken off as the height of the sun's warmth was around about now. We then headed west on the U2 to our  Sophie-Charlotten-Platz folly. After a futile search, we asked for a 2km radar, only to be told we were not anywhere near Blujay. This necessitated new thinking, so we headed back east, ending up at Fehberliner Platz having taken the U7 from Bismarkstrasse. At this point, there were only a few stations he could possibly be at - either on the U7, U4 or U9, so we spent a lot of time at Fehberliner Platz drawing on maps to work out which exact areas were excluded. At this point, we asked for a picture of the tallest building in his sightline and this proved to be a breakthrough. It was a unique shaped white building with a black square thing on its roof. We identified it reasonably quickly to Hohenzollendamm on the S41/42 ring, right on the edge of the gameplay area. Fortunately, we were only 10 minutes walk from there and as we approached, we became increasingly confident. Then we got hit by a curse.

It's fair to say that Jet Lag is a young person's game. On the TV show, the main participants are all in their late 20s and reasonably fit. They are not nearly 44 and overweight. The Curse of the Runner was particularly cruel, not least because we had our ovary teammate to protect. In this curse, we had to either run or stand still for a duration of 30 minutes. No walking was allowed. At this point, we were getting close and spent time bombing around an allotment trying to find him. We also asked for selfie, getting a picture of a grumpy fox leaning on a rock back. This rock would later throw us as we spent way too much time looking for it on street view. As we were running about, one kind man asked whether we were okay, as clearly we were unaccustomed to such exercise. After about 20 minutes, I'd had enough, and we sat on a chair outside a Russian Orthodox church that seemed to be guarded by a gopnik and did some more strategy as we ran down the 30-minute curse clock.

This was mistake number two. We didn't think the rock could be in the allotment, but had failed to notice a path along its perimeter. Unbeknown to us, we were about 200m from Blujay here, but then went in a different direction. I was distracted by Bielefeldstrasse, knowing that's where Blujay once lived, while the tree-lined Ciserostrasse looked like the sort of place where this rock would be. Cue an hour of walking around light industrial units, car mechanics garages, and a place that designs theatrical costumes. A glamorous part of the city this wasn't, yet it was one where people liked to use their horns. After a while, we just settled into a casual chat, enjoying the afternoon sun. Part of the problem was the questions in the small game were somewhat limited. We could only ask six photo questions, for example, and two of them weren't particularly useful (tree and sky, although we did ask the sky one). Still, we persevered and eventually did find him, hiding behind his big rock, aided by narrowing down the search area to within 190m and 500m of his station based on another radar. At one point, we thought this might be a homeless person, but we double checked and verified it was him. With time bonuses, his run ran to 4 hours 12 minutes.

This would be a difficult time to beat, but one that we decided would have to leak into Sunday. It was 5:20pm by the time we found Blujay, the sun would set in just over an hour, and we were all pretty knackered. We also wanted food. We therefore decided to call it quits for the day and head to BRLO in Charlottenburg. There, Wolfie met us, and we had a few beers and some of their delicious fried chicken. We filled Wolfie in on the day - he was in the Telegram chat and had kept an eye on things, but I think he enjoyed hearing about our shenanigans first-hand. Maybe one day, he'll do it with us, but he's not really familiar with the show. We had three beers in the end, noticing the bar filling up and getting livelier. I paid for everyone, receiving 167 loyalty points in the process. We then decided to check out some of the Festival of Lights, although Wolfie headed back to preserve his foot. It was a shame he did, as at Yorckstrasse, we saw a lorry with wolf pictures on its bonnet and side. He would have really liked that. The lights were somewhat muted this year. We got the S-Bahn up from Yorckstrasse to Brandenburger Tor, which was thronging with people. This was more a relief though as we had to deal with a wheelchair-bound man on the S-Bahn who strongly smelled of shit. The fresh air was welcome. The Brandenburger Tor light show was the usual one of three competition winners on loop, with the DJing Donkey, Dog, Cat, and Rooster being my favourite. We then walked down Unten den Linden, spying the light show at Babelplatz projected onto the Hotel du Rome. This had a steampunk bunny theme, which I quite liked, while on the walls of the Staatoper there was the word for 'love' in myriad languages. Tungro spotted the Dutch one. On the Humboldt, there was a monochrome design, while the animal theme continued at Berliner Dom, although I only saw two images of the slideshow there. We ended the evening at Alexanderplatz, frustrated to discover that one-fifth of the light projection on the TV Tower wasn't being displayed, devaluing the whole thing. It was then time to go back home as we were tired. I was feeling a little subdued, tiredness mainly, but the Festival of Lights did seem far less impressive than usual this time around.

We didn't get up that early on Sunday, but agreed we should play my hiding round. I was feeling somewhat apprehensive about this, the technology being somewhat new to me, but in the end I managed to work my way around Google Maps pretty easily. As is the case on the show, we had to go back to where we ended the night before, so we traipsed down to Blujay's rock (which we are now calling it and urge you to request a name change on Google maps). It’s actually a rock advertising the Apeldoorner Weg, but Blujay’s rock sounds much better. We agreed to change the rules slightly on account of it being a Sunday. Tasks like the Curse of the Egg Partner wouldn’t be fair due to all the shops being closed, so we agreed I could discard these curses if I felt they weren’t possible (I should probably have done this for Curse of the Ransom Note, but I thought some Spatis may sell newspapers). Ever since realising we were going to end at Hohenzollendamm, I had been thinking where to go, but my options were limited. The S41/42 ring was operating rail replacement bus services, so there was only one good way out, which was back to Fehberliner Platz. I hadn’t realised just how quickly you can get across Zone A, but in my 10-minute preparation time, I confirmed where I wanted to go. It was a bit of a risk, as it was near where I used to live, but there were a few reasons why it was a good spot. Firstly, it was at another extreme of the gameplay area, the north-west as opposed to the south-west. Secondly, it had a sneaky U-Bahn station exit that allowed me to take a picture of a building that could be difficult to find. Thirdly, I knew a street that may work as a good place to hide.

Once it was my time to hide, I ran down the path and away from the seekers, largely to give the impression of a sense of urgency. I am not sure they were fooled – and only travelling 20 minutes away instead of the maximum 30 was a risk. However, it turned out to be a good move, not least because I failed to anticipate the first question. I would have asked whether I was in the same Bezirk as them, but instead they went for a 2km radar, suspecting I had stayed locally. This was a miss, so they headed into the city centre, effectively away from me. This was quite heartwarming as I was concerned I would either bugger everything up, or not be competitive. My self-doubt plays havoc.

My first card was a handy 20-minute time bonus, so I knew I only had to stay hidden for one-and-a-quarter hours to beat Tungro’s time. Their next question was a 1km thermometer, which they did from Nollendorfplatz to Wittenburgplatz. This was hotter, but I was delighted they were so far away from me. They were soon to catch up though. This allowed me to draw another card, and I got Curse of the Express Route. I kept this, thinking it would be useful, yet failing to account for the casting cost of 10 minutes of time bonus. As Jungfernheide was the next stop, and that was on the edge of Zone A, they would just have to stop here. This meant the Express Route curse wasn’t as useful as I thought it would be (they had to stay on the train for 10 minutes then theoretically double back) as it wasn’t worth sacrificing 20 minutes of time.

Then I was asked to take a picture of the widest street, which I think threw them. I opted for the widest street as displayed by Google, which had an island in the middle of it, but the widest street by number of lanes was the one running perpendicular to it. This allowed me to draw another card, and I got Curse of the Endless Tumble. With a casting cost of rolling a dice and not being able to play this if it landed on a five or a six, it was quite a low-cost move. They were in Bismarkstrasse when I played it, knowing that they had to roll a die 30m and if it hit anyone, they would give me 10 minutes of time. Alas, it was a Sunday and so this usually busy station was deserted, allowing them to clear the task quickly. Still, it was the right time to play it and was just one of those things.

They spent a long time at Bismarkstrasse strategizing. I spent a while just wandering around my zone, walking past my favourite Ethiopian restaurant many times (no doubt making them wonder what the hell I was doing) but I had already picked my hiding place behind the recycling plant. This offered no view from the road and although I would be easy to spot coming from the allotments to the north, I doubt it would be that critical as you still had to get quite close to be able to see me (typically, this is the direction from which they eventually came). While there, they asked me for a photo of a building from a station entrance, and this was the one I wanted to throw them with. I had already prepped a few of these pictures beforehand, but realized my first building was not within the rules as you had to see at least two walls. I therefore went back, in the pissing rain, to take another shot. Indeed, the weather was far more inclement than it had been on the Saturday, even making us toy with doing my run at all, but in the end, I only had to swerve three rain showers. There was a useful awning outside a shuttered pub that worked, while I even went to the Snack Zone and had a Hackfleisch Rolle, which I rated ‘mostly medium’. I tried to film myself drawing cards, but it was windy and everywhere was wet, making it difficult. Indeed, I had to put down one of our specially printed district maps so the cards wouldn’t get wet (I do wish Google Maps had some features like the easy ability to see district boundaries on the maps themselves, and the ability to easily show radial distances from a certain point). I did film a few vlogs, but was largely garbling so they came out pretty shit. I don’t like how I look anyway.

The next question was the one I had been expecting first – same Bezirk – which I confirmed as a hit. They were getting closer, and when they asked whether I was on the same line as them (U7) I knew they had narrowed it down to just three stations. I was accruing cards though, including some good time bonuses, while a 10% increased time bonus card made every minute they spent searching for me even more valuable. They got to Richard-Wagner-Platz, stuck their head out of the station, and dismissed it quickly as Otto-Suhr-Allee was far too big a road. I didn’t go here as it was where I used to live and I wasn’t sure whether I had told them that. I also knew Charlottenburg Town Hall would catch me out in tallest sightline building.

They soon encroached into my territory, meaning I had to get in position. It was weird just loitering there for an hour, with some distressed dogs barking at me, and recycling plant workers doing their best to avoid me. No one really said anything, although I did notice one overweight man loitering on the street for unknown reasons. We clocked each other, but I had the Hide + Seek game rules and cards on me, so I could at least explain it. Meanwhile, Tungro’s gurning avatar was bearing down on me. They asked for a selfie, which I obliged, then I sat down on the ground and waited. They were quite methodical, and I hoped they would ask more questions, but alas they didn’t apart from a 500m radar to confirm where I was. This really helped them as it was a hit when they thought it would be a miss. After this, I drew a Discard 2 Keep 3 card, which I regret not playing. I already had the maximum six cards in my hand at that point, so I would have had to discard three essentially, but one was a two-minute time bonus which meant little. I could have perhaps drawn some better curses as the ones I did get – Ransom Note and the one where you had to shoot a photo of the chasers and hope they don’t shoot a picture of you within 60 seconds – weren’t appealing. In the end, they did find me after 2 hours and 43 minutes, which gave me a run of 3 hours 29 minutes after time bonuses. I was delighted with this – being less than 45 minutes behind Blujay’s winning run was good going. Alas, I was so tired, we didn’t do the end bit about presenting a trophy and saying we were jetlagged, even if Blujay did prompt us.

Fortunately, as we were at Mariendorffplatz, it was only a 15-minute train ride home. En route, we picked up some Stortebekers from the Altstadt Spati. The church bells were ringing, calling in the faithful, and everything seemed idyllic. We walked down by the river, where I showed Tungro the Holocaust memorial, the Rathaus, and the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers, even though he didn’t want to see it. When we got back, we had beers and shared our exploits with Wolfie. I must admit, after two days on the go, my body and legs ached (the running really fucked up the muscles in my left knee). I am looking forward to Jet Lag: The Over 40s Edition, and admire how they can spend up to seven days playing the game AND recording it too. We also learned a great deal about strategy and things we would tweak for a future game, which we undoubtedly will do.

Tungro was going to stay overnight but he decided to go to a hotel with a blue goblin hanging from the wall, largely due to his need to work on Monday and having to go to the airport early to sort out a passport mix-up. Blujay, meanwhile, was on an overnight train back to Frankfurt. We decided to go Cappuccino for pizza, noting that this sit-down place was of higher quality and lower price than Pizza Max. After this, our friends picked up their bags and we took them to Hauptbahnhof. Tungro checked into his hotel while the rest of us headed to The Castle for beers. Tungro joined us and we rounded off a busy weekend with a couple of drinks. Blujay left to catch his train, we stayed an extra half hour and were the last people in the bar apart from the barfly (he wanted to talk to me while I was ordering beer, but I felt a little intimidated and regretfully, I ignored him). Indeed, the staff were cleaning up around us. We got the M10 tram back to Hauptbahnhof, where we had to split rather quickly so we could get the last S-Bahn to Spandau. There were other more convoluted options later, but this was much quicker. Alas, there was someone else on this train who smelled strongly of shit, so much so that there were three sets of empty seats around him. The smell was so obnoxious that it made the ride back very tough. Still, we did get back, with many great memories of a fantastic weekend. 

We already have plans to play Jet Lag in other cities, while we would like to do a medium game over the AB zone in Berlin too. This would have more interesting questions I feel, while it would be good for Tungro in particular to have a chance of hiding with all of our additional knowledge, while we’ll also tweak the rules again to make them both more consistent and fairer. Hopefully, we will be able to do this again soon, but it'll probably have to be the Spring - it getting dark at 6:30pm in October was a little prohibitive and I expect an AB game to take at least two whole days, if not three. I’m not sure whether I preferred hiding or seeking. Both have periods of excitement and periods of tedium. Combing every street trying to find Blujay ended up being a little frustrating, while being sat in the same place for hours on end had its own challenges. At times though there is an awful lot to do and think about, and I did occasionally panic. I am sure this will get better the more I play though, so we’ll see how it goes. The camaraderie of seeking is fun, while hiding you are very much on your own, but then being a hider is far more strategic. I liked having and playing curses, as well as trying to work out the best gameplay, so I can see both sides of the coin having their pros and cons. And maybe next time, I'll get Curse of the Passenger Princess, my favourite.

Tungro's Run
Time: 1h 36m
Start: Friedrichstrasse
End: Kleistpark

1km thermometer - Friedrichstrasse-Museumsinsel (Colder)
Photo of Any Building Visible from Station
Photo of Widest Street
Selfie
No curses played

Blujay's Run
Time: 4h 12m
Start: Kleistpark
End: Hohenzollerndamm

1km thermometer - Kleistpark-Yorckstrasse (Colder)
Photo of Any Building Visible from Station
Are you in the same administrative area as us? Berlin-Bezirk Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf (Yes)
Photo of Widest Street
Curse of the Egg Partner
2km radar from Sophie-Charlotten-Platz
Photo of Tallest Structure in Your Sightline
Curse of the Runner
Selfie
Photo of Sky
Compared to us, are you nearer or further from a railway station? We were 190m from Hohenzollerndamm (Further)

Lupestripe's Run
Time:3h 29m
Start: Hohenzollerndamm
End: Mierendorffplatz

2km radar from Hohenzollerndamm - Miss
1km thermometer - Nollendorfplatz-Wittenburgplatz (Hotter)
Photo of Widest Street
Curse of the Endless Tumble
Photo of Any Building Visible from Station
Are you in the same administrative area as us? Berlin-Bezirk Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf (Yes)
Is your station on our train line (U7 - Bismarckstr, Richard-Wagner-Platz, Mierendorffplatz, Jungfernheide) (Yes)
Selfie
500m radar from corner of Gaussstrasse and Lise-Meitner-Strasse (Hit)

This past weekend saw me travel to Cambridge to attend my 25th anniversary matriculation dinner. Considering there were no plus ones allowed, it basically was a huge slice of reminiscence, without anyone's partners or kids. It's incredible to think that it has been 25 years since I started university, but of course it ties in with the 25th anniversary of 9/11, which was the day that I got my first full suit to attend the institution.

I flew into London late on Friday night, feeling somewhat downbeat following another difficult week of work. I am caught between being overworked, underpaid, and still trying to find a full-time job, but there was some good news on Thursday when one of my former clients came back to me asking for work. The problem was they needed it ahead of the weekend, which saw me scrabbling to complete it on Friday. I just about got it delivered on time then headed to the airport, travelling with a suitcase which only contained my business suit, a change of clothes and a few other random items. At least it wasn't too tricky to drag around, and I made my way over to the UK fairly easily. British Airways wasn't too bad and I even got some Hob-Nobs on the plane, while I used the downtime at the airport to apply for two jobs. Indeed, I brought my laptop with the thinking that I had a good chunk of Sunday free, but that turned out not to be the case.

Immigration at Heathrow was straightforward but baggage claim wasn't. They seemed to be loading the bags at about one a minute, meaning I missed my bus to Woking, which was where I needed to be. Complicating matters was that I thought I needed a train, so I went to the Elizabeth Line platforms first. Upon realising it would take me over two hours to get to my sister, I somewhat panicked, heading back to the terminal. There, a man did at least let me buy the full ticket for my journey - one bus then one train - which I was happy to accept despite the rip-off £5 booking fee that was associated with it. Alas, with the bus being hourly, I head about fifty minutes to kill, meaning I had to sit with a sorry and soggy bacon sandwich in a Cafe Nero just wasting time.

The bus, at least, showed up on time and soon we were trundling along country roads to Woking. I was surprised there wasn't a direct route, but we did get to the train station on time. Here, I had to wait about fifteen minutes for my train to Godalming, where my sister was waiting for me. I hadn't seen her for 15 months, since my father's 70th birthday, so it was good to catch up. We strolled through this rather picturesque town and I couldn't help but think how it was a world apart from the industrial misery that categorises much of Northern England. I toyed with the idea of grabbing some cans from a craft beer bar that was just about to close, but my sister said she had cans of Northern Monk's Faith in, so we went back to hers. We chatted a while, but by 2am I was getting somewhat tired and we went to bed. My sister has been down in Surrey for something like eight years and this was the first time I had ever been to her place. I was reassured to note the walls were painted Berlin beige like our place here is.

The next morning was beautifully sunny and after a breakfast of avocado on toast, with some avocado salt sprinkled atop it, we headed back into the town to have a look around. It was very busy, while it was worth noting the sheer number of independent shops. We went for a walk in the park, who is named after Jack Phillips, one of the crew who lost his life in the Titanic disaster. He is local and the park is beautiful, sitting as it does on the bank of the river. On the other side there is common grazing land, while the Godalming Bowls Club and the war memorial are both contained within. We then headed towards the vicarage and church, exploring ginnals that not even my sister had explored, before walking along the canal for a short while. We ended up in local bakery Loaf, where we grabbed a Millionaires' Shortbread to take back to the flat. We had a cup of tea, flavoured with oddly-tasting oat milk, then I had to head back to the station to catch my train to Cambridge. I wished I could have stayed with my sister longer, but it was good to see her, even if was brief. Hopefully I can head there again soon.

The trip to Cambridge was two and a half hours, and had I realised this, I may have just booked a hotel. The train into London was fine, but the Tube was exceptionally busy, making travelling with my case somewhat difficult. At King's Cross, I had about twenty-five minutes to kill and had the choice of going common at Greggs or going posh at Gail's next door. You know which one I went for. I then boarded the train to Cambridge, bumping into my university friend PM as I entered my carriage. He was going to the dinner that evening and indeed was staying in the same hotel as I - the glamorous Cambridge Central Travelodge - so we sat next to each other and chatted. He filled me in on all the goings-on with my university friendship circle - a circle it became evident I really should see more often as he filled me in - while we chatted life stuff in general. Once at Cambridge, we checked in and showered/shit/shaved, before reconvening in full black tie ensemble shortly after 5pm. We then took a taxi to college. I could have had a tour around the new college library, but alas I couldn't get there on time.

I had mixed feelings about wearing black tie. It set off gender alarms while, even in Cambridge, it singles you out as something of a twat. As we approached Magdalene Bridge, we saw another one of our friends, AT, standing upon it wistfully looking down the Cam. We approached, and as there was still an hour to Evensong, we decided to grab a drink at a local bar. This was a blonde Vedett, which was very refreshing on a warm early autumn day, while again we reminisced about the past and chatted about the present. It was all rather pleasant and a good prelude to the evening's festivities. At 6:15pm, they headed to Evensong in the college chapel while I decided to check out the places where I used to live as a student, which were both just around the corner. While doing this, I phoned my mother just to pass the time, before heading back into college for the pre-dinner drinks.

This event was one of three meals the college puts on for its alumni - one for the 10th anniversary matriculation (which I missed), this one for the 25th, and the final one for the 50th. Therefore, we had people who had matriculated in 2011, 2001 and 1976 with us and it was clear that the 2011 class were far less heavy drinkers than we were. The pre-dinner drinks were in Second Court, with a table of champagne-filled flutes awaiting us. I was on my own for a short while and was approached by MF and SG, two very religious people who I knew but did not know well. The former is now a fully ordained bishop and was in suitable garb, and I did enjoy chatting with them albeit briefly. As the gloaming set in as the sun descended, my eyesight went really blurry for some reason, but the lack of light was a good prelude for Formal Hall. This is always better in the darker months as it's candlelit, so the atmosphere was spooky yet exciting. The dark green panelling made it feel straight out of another century.

Dinner was served at 7:30pm, and we were sat as per the seating plan. We could choose two friends to sit with and I was sat next to both of my choices, but the reality was all of our friendship group was sat together. There was six of us, about half of the group, so it was a good opportunity to catch up. It was a four-course dinner, with a wine pairing each. Like with outside, the wine was frequently topped up, making for an increasingly messy evening. I'll admit I felt very emotional when the Master of the college read our traditional grace in Latin, while the post-dinner speeches were surprisingly touching too. This world is quite far removed from my furry existence and so it was strange being back. Indeed, I wasn't out as gay during my university days either. Most of my friends knew I'm furry, and this alongside gender identity were the main topics of conversation I had with my closest friend JB. She had requested to be sat next to me too, which was very touching, not least because I hadn't seen her since we attended Brighton Pride together in 2017. I probably confessed a bit too much, but she's always been pro-LGBTQ+ and politically we are very aligned so it's all good. On the Sunday afternoon, we went for a drink together in central London where I gave her my furry business card so the cat... or maybe that should be the dog... is out of the bag.

The meal itself was very nice. It was a fishy starter of some kind, followed by roast beef and vegetables. Dessert I honestly can't remember, but the cheese board that followed was exquisite. Like with all cheese boards though, it didn't come with enough crackers and I never know why they skimp on the cheapest ingredient. The fellows stayed long into the night and after the speeches, we started to drift away, to the college bar which was open specially for us. In an ideal world, I probably would have gone to the local pub on the opposite side of the college, but it is closed for three weeks for renovation. I remember the college bar being a bit plain, while £2 for a pint of Carlsberg seemed pricey even in 2001. However, they have changed it now, reducing the lighting and placing a pink neon sign on the wall. They also serve Camden Pale and Camden Helles at the not unreasonable price of £5.80. Anyway, we stayed here for the next two hours, buying each other rounds and chatting. Some photos were taken too, but hopefully I am not in them. The conversation was varied, but there was far more AI talk than I would have liked. Many of my friends work in either academia or banking, and AI has its tentacles in here too, although it was interesting to discover its positive uses, particularly when it came to research. My friends seem to have mixed feelings about the technology, but I suppose it was good to learn about some good real-world uses, even if I do hate much of what AI is and represents.

The suit was starting to get annoying by this stage, not least because it was Wolfie's and about two sizes too big. The 40" trousers were particularly frustrating, but I soldiered through it. People also started to drift away - I was particularly sad I didn't get to speak much to my ex, KST, but hopefully we can meet up at some point soon. After last orders, we headed to the Baron of Beef, further down the street. I don't think I had ever been here even as an undergraduate, but it was the only place that was open past midnight. Another two pints here and we tipped off to the main square in the city centre, where many of my friends purchased food from The Van of Life (there are two takeaway trucks in Cambridge, this one and The Van of Death and which one you went to was quasi-religious). I didn't have anything, largely because the food had been so substantial, but I did end up having two bags of crisps and a bag of Skittles in the hotel room later. After food, MT and I shared a taxi down to the Travelodge, with PM having departed earlier that evening. MT was staying in Homerton College nearby and initially had wanted the taxi to take him, but when he was told of a surcharge, he decided to walk the five minutes instead. I ended the evening watching Angela Rippon visiting Bamberg on a cruise - both at 2:40am then one hour later on the +1 channel. I love Bamberg and had been to the specialist smoked beer bar where she was sampling it. She said she wasn't a fan of beer, but gave it a bloody great go.

I was meant to ring my uncle on Sunday to discuss a project we're working on, but through my hangover I forgot. He frantically rang me about forty-five minutes later and I did at least speak to him. By this point, I had checked out of the hotel (the housekeeping were very insistent, knocking on my door fifteen minutes prior to checkout when I was naked after having a quick shower) and was walking up to meet JB and JW in a cafe called Chili 2. En route, I picked up some crumpets and paracetamol, and eventually we found ourselves in Greggs. I grabbed a vegan sausage roll, making me eligible for a free pasty through the Greggs app, but alas I didn't claim it and now it'll expire before I get back to the UK. We couldn't find an open Greggs in London and JB and I tried before we had our drink. JW was interested in seeing Placebo in London - having seen them perform in Warsaw with me back in 2003 - but alas the dates had sold out. We then decided to grab a fast train to London, which sat there for an hour and then was cancelled, necessitating a trip on the very crowded next service. I did find a seat though and there was a train doggo - a sweet black lab who wanted her owner's cake and was shocked later when her owner accidentally dropped a bag on her head. She was very apologetic.

At King's Cross, JW departed and I went with JB to Farrington, where I showed her the TfL labyrinth then we tried to find our Greggs then get to the pub. We chose Farrington as she could get back to Brighton easily from there and I could get the Elizabeth line straight through to Heathrow Terminal 5. This I did, arriving two hours and fifteen minutes prior to my flight. Check in and security was all fine, and I had time for a tasty Five Guys in the terminal. There, I also did my Delay Repay for the cancelled train, and boarded the flight on time. I got back to Spandau at a half past midnight, tired but happy following a great weekend. Most of my uni friends urged me to visit them more, and considering many are in London, this shouldn't be difficult. I did feel an overwhelming pull of emotion to be back in college with them again, far more than I expected to, and I am glad I made the trip. Hopefully, we can all see each other again soon.

Financial worries are starting to become crippling, with my mental health shot as a result. I don't recall ever being so tired, nor so busy while earning so little. One of the two big projects I was hoping for has been postponed, while I am unsure of the second. I really would like a break. The only advantage is that Wolfie had his immigration interview this week, so that gives us greater flexibility should we need to return to the UK. I'd like to make it work here in Germany, but the money is starting to run out.

In addition to this, I still don't feel like I fit in here. To be honest, I don't feel like I fit in anywhere. I know it's objectively nonsense, but that doesn't change how I feel. Folsom this weekend was a case in point. I was dreading going all the way up to the day, fearing that everyone knew everyone else and I'd be alone. This was even after I had been invited into the Ponyplay Telegram group for the very event. Indeed, had Diawl not dropped me a message on Saturday morning inviting me to a photoshoot outside the Brandenburg Gate (I couldn't go as I was asleep when I received it), I probably wouldn't have gone at all. In the end, I did get down to the street fair, hanging around for a couple of hours before heading back to Chip's hotel room for a chat. I also got to wear my full pony gear down at Folsom for the first time. I put my gear on at home and risked the U-Bahn, getting only one negative comment when a loud Turkish man asked me whether I was going scuba diving. I got some positive looks too though. I wore the rubber gas mask hood this time, which I guess gives sense to the scuba diving comment, largely as I could take it on and off at will. My other pony hood is a lace affair and once I'm in, it's difficult to get out. The fair was rammed and with my steamed up lenses, there were occasional bouts of claustrophobia, but it was good showing off and I largely felt good. I got a few photos, but being at the back of our group of ponies, I kinda missed out on many of them. I know my gear is not as sophisticated as some others' - and that too was weighing on my mind a bit - but ultimately it was a pleasant afternoon. The highlight was eating food outside the Fugger Imbiss.

In a way, I wish I did more than the street fair, but cruising and clubbing don't really appeal. Diawl and Chip were going to Animalz and the €35 ticket (plus drinks) was a little too steep on my current budget. I did manage to hang out with Diawl on Sunday though, showing him around the Deutsches Teknik Museum and East Side Gallery, prior to which we stopped at Hopfenreich for a drink. This was a pleasant way to while some time and I showed Diawl the public toilets under Schlesisches Tor that is now a Burgermeister. I also showed him some real public toilets and a mural in the Pride flag colours on an apartment that was essentially the map of the world. I had never seen this before because I am only ever in this area after dark. I picked up a beer at the Spati, as is tradition, for our walk along the East Side Gallery and once done, we headed up to Prenzlauer Berg for some pizza. I got on the wrong tram - apparently the M10 has two different directions - resulting in us having to double back and then get rained on as the weather had become somewhat torrential. Still, we only got to the restaurant 10 minutes later than our booking and it was quite quiet anyway, unlike the last time I had come here, three years ago with the Fureigners Gourmet Crew. Wolfie met us here - he had been down at Folsom but wanted to rest his foot on Sunday - and we had some stunning margharita pizza, which is a specialty of this place. Mala Femmena is one of the best pizza places in the city and when Diawl suggested he wanted pizza, it was the place to go. Wolfie had never been either and concorded. After this, we headed to the U2 to see Diawl to his train before having two drinks over at Manifest, including a Latvian take on an English barley wine (called Pokainu Mezs or Magic Forest) and a Funky Fluid brew based on a traditional Makowiec pastry. That's probably one of the reasons why I feel so ropy today and have slept for much of it. It was great seeing Diawl and getting to know him better too - we cross paths at various pony events and furcons, but this was the first time we spent many hours with each other. It was a really great day.

Fueling my fears of not fitting in was the Fureigners Meet on Thursday. The problem in Berlin is that everyone is so tech focused, that I find it hard to connect. What highlighted this more strongly was that I was showing Synthwave and her husband the meet. This meant I had to do introductions and I realised that I didn't know that many people. At least Seebass was there, who is always good value, while arriving as late as we did (9:45pm) meant quite a few people had gone. One of the reasons for this tardiness was a parking failure. They had booked a car park space with an app that rents out individual spaces in residential car parks, yet when we arrived, we discovered someone already parked in the space. With nowhere else to go, we had to drive around the streets looking for a spot, which took some time. When we did, it was on Ackerstrasse and we got to walk past the old Brewdog, which has now been turned into a standard beer drinking venue. It was quite sad to see the same decor retained, but they were proudly promoting Schultheiss, which is such an average beer. I think Synthwave and her husband had a good time at the meet though and they were kind enough to drive me back home afterwards. We had met at a sushi place called MuSuKo 1984, which was very near where we used to live in Mariendorffplatz. Indeed, I had walked past it numerous times during lockdown, wondering what it was like. I am glad I had the opportunity to try it as I got the sushi platter for one, with a range of different nigiri, shashimi, and the like. It was a mite spendy, but it came recommended by my friends, and it was certainly worth it. Upstairs, in the toilet, I was surprised by the poster of the Teletubbies on the wall for some reason. The last thing I wanted to see was Tinky Winky watching me take a tinkly winkly.

So there we are really. I feel somewhat browbeaten with the amount of tasks I have to do, yet frustrated I don't have anywhere near enough money to survive. Things are picking up slightly on the financial front, but it's not enough to break even. In the meantime, I am having really low periods of self-doubt about pretty much everything. I'd love to feel that I fit in somewhere, particularly the fetish scene, but I don't have the confidence to get fully involved. I hate that about myself and fear people just tolerate me rather than like me. It's probably an over-exaggeration, but I need to learn how to like myself again, as this cannot really go on. It's certainly not right to hate myself as much as I do.

Leaving the UK was very difficult, but life has a way of accepting a new situation as normality. We gave ourselves plenty of time to get to Manchester Airport, despite having to endure the indignity of Terminal 3. Little did we know that, during the renovations, they have converted the upstairs bit to the Sporting Chance sports bar. This was a significant improvement over the previous overcrowded eateries in that terminal, so we managed to grab a couple of beers and some Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. These were a bit weird, with an odd pesto and cucumber defiling them, while the bread really needed to be of the crunchy variety rather than soft. Still, it was acceptable enough and the price was alright, while the triple-cooked chips were decent enough. We ended up watching highlights of the previous weekend's Championship football fixtures and I'll admit it was a decent way to wile away time. Alas, what we didn't realise was that our plane would be delayed by an hour and a half, with our gate moving from 52 to 55 before this was even announced. This saw us having to wait with our bags in the queue for an inordinate amount of time, with the staff not telling us anything about what was happening. At one point, I was fearful we wouldn't get back to Berlin before the airport closed, but fortunately we just about made it, getting back to Spandau shortly before 1am.

This was a problem as Wolfie was due to start work at 5:30am to cover some work in Australia. This meant he barely got any sleep, while there was little time for recovery as we had guests coming over in the evening. As it was Procyon's birthday, he decided to come over for a weekend of celebration, with Wolfie's birthday being the subsequent day. With a weekend of different activities falling conveniently, Baloki also expressed interest, while Whiskian signed up about a week ahead of the trip. Procyon and Whiskian were both on the same flight, while Baloki had flown in earlier on the Thursday. While the latter got into Berlin on time, the other two saw their flight cancelled. With chaos at Manchester Airport ensuing, Baloki found them an alternative via Dusseldorf on Eurowings for high high prices, but at least it meant they could attend the beer cruise we had booked for the Friday. They ended up sharing a bed at the Heald Green Premier Inn, where we had stayed prior to Baloki's birthday back in May, while Baloki was largely on his own. He tried to go to the gay bar Woof!, only to discover it didn't open until 8pm. He checked into his hotel, the interesting Garner at Stresow which alas we didn't get to visit, and was mooching about for most of the evening. Coming out was looking difficult as, along with a full day of work, I had to do chores like washing the spare bed linen and going to the supermarket, but I somehow got things done by around 10:45pm. Not wanting to spend too much money, what with August being a very low income month, in the end we decided to meet Baloki by the River Havel and grab a few beers from a Spati. As it turned out, the Spati was heaving as a concert was tipping out of the Zitadelle (Zitadelle, fun for you and me!), meaning the centre of Spandau was quite a party zone. After the alcoholism of the UK, I decided to go for two alcohol-free Stortebekers, returning after I had finished my first, as we were having such a lovely time catching up and chatting by the river. We went home shortly after midnight, knowing it would be a busy weekend ahead, and had an enjoyable lie-in.

It was touch and go whether Whiskian and Procyon would make Berlin ahead of the beer cruise, which was scheduled for 6pm. They were delayed half an hour, but managed touchdown at around 2pm and got to Spandau shortly after 3pm. I advised them to get food en route, with Baloki kindly meeting them at Spandau station so I could round off my work. They then dropped their bags off and we headed back into town, with Jannowitzbrucke our destination. A quick walk to Markisches Ufer and we were dismayed to discover an already lengthy line for the cruse ship, despite it being 75 minutes prior to cast off. Even the literature that came with the ticket suggested queuing from 5pm, and I was worried we wouldn't be able to seat all five of us on the same table. These fears were unfounded as we got perched next to a group of three boring people who barely talked to each other, never mind chatting to us. It was unlike last year when we met the two probably gay Canadian guys and the Norwegian brewery man, with whom we facilitated a distribution deal with a Dutch brewer. The boring people were sandwiched between the gangway and the railing on the side of the boat, so we had to be up and down a lot as they went for beers. Meanwhile, we drank 12 0.2ml measures over the course of the three hours. It was a pleasant sailing perhaps key Berlin sights and cement factories, but the weather was less clement than it had been last year (fortunately it only rained briefly as we joined the queue, but it was a cloudy affair throughout). I was a little worried that Baloki wouldn't find it good value, not being a beer drinker, but he seemed to enjoy the cruising part. As the evening wore on, the cheers as we went under the bridges went louder, and although we were chased off a little towards the end, it was a pleasant evening indeed. Alas, there were no special beers to share this time and, annoyingly, around seven of the 28 beers weren't available, but still it was just about value for money.

With us having had food at around 3pm, and most of our friends having had just a snausage, there was a call for food before any further drinking. We tried going down to Kottbusser Tor to sample the Burgermeister there, only to discover it was closed. I remembered that the original location in the toilets under Schlesisches Tor station still existed and as the beer cruise after party was nearby, we thought we'd go there. I was toying with just getting fries, but with the cheeseburger costing a mere €5.95, I thought that was the better value. It was served quick and hot, with it being deliciously moreish. It was definitely the right call, and I was distraught when the final two mouthfuls fell from my packet and hit the pavement. Fortunately, Baloki let me share his burger, which dispelled the craving somewhat. Everyone else seemed impressed with the food and we then headed to Strassenbrau's new bar at Gorli. This was about a 10-minute walk away next to Gorlitzer Park, and was opened a few months back. It's very spacious, with a cocktail bar on the top floor up a flight of curved stairs. We got a free drink from here and settled in the back, with most of the activity outside out the front. Even the boring people were here, but they didn't recognise us. We ended up having two drinks here, before deciding we had had enough to drink and tapping out. Everyone was really tired too, what with Wolfie's early shift, Procyon and Whiskian's mammoth flight, and Baloki. We therefore made our way back to Spandau, calling off at the Spati on the way. We saw the fox back to his hotel and took the rest back to ours, getting Whiskian set up on the inflatable mattress and Procyon set up on the familiar blue sofa he calls home. While doing this, I asked how many moons Planet Procyon has and he said none and that it didn't matter. I then told him about tides and he reconsidered. I also showed them the British Pork advert from 1984 which has been doing the rounds since SNL UK parodied it. The Blobby Operation Grimthorpe one and the Chin Review swiftly followed. Procyon was not amused.

It was no surprise that Saturday was a late start, but this was beneficial. It was the Long Night of the Museums, which ran from 6pm through to 2am. We had done this with Seebass back in 2024 and when I mentioned it to Mr. P, he seemed to be interested. I had given them our proposed itinerary a few days before, while Baloki had been scouting around too. I suggested starting and ending in the same place, but going off and exploring whatever was of interest in the middle. I was aware that what interests me may not interest others, while as a resident of Berlin, my motivations may be slightly different to a tourist's. In the end, it all worked out rather well and I think everyone saw what they wanted to. Wolfie and I stuck together, with Seebass following us throughout, while everyone else split from us after the first museum and we met up under the bomber at the Deutsches Technik Museum shortly after 1am for an overpriced cocktail.

We headed into town at around 4pm, deciding to go to the Mall of Berlin for some pre-museum noms. En route, we noticed the main intersection in Spandau was closed, with a burnt-out white car surrounded by emergency vehicles. We don't know how this happened, and the car remained there for the next 48 hours, but the traffic was severely disrupted. The Mall of Berlin was chosen as it was quite central, while it had a variety of concessions so everyone could be well-sated. While there were definitely better options out there, Wolfie and I went for the nostalgia play of Pizza Hut. Their unmistakable thick deep pan crust was there, with as much fat in it as you could wring, while the quality wasn't too dissimilar to how it was 25 years ago. My last Pizza Hut must have been in York in around 2014 and I remember it being poor then. This one wasn't too bad, even if it was a mite spendy (but still not as bad as the €1 we had to pay to use the bathroom).

The plan was to meet Seebass outside the Trabi Museum at 5:50pm, so we mosied on down there with plenty of time. He was running a little late, and we had to wait outside until the museum could accept us as their ticketing system was set up for a 6pm start for the Long Night of the Museum tickets. This allowed Seebass to arrive shortly after 6pm, and we headed inside. Most of the others only hung around here for around half an hour, probably because we got engrossed in a documentary about the Trabant which must have been filmed in something like 2009. Still, it was fascinating, and I didn't realise that the Trabi was such a forerunner of a car, at least in the 1960s before it became something of a Communist joke. This museum had a nice selection of different generation Trabis, and some special ones too, including one that broke the speed record for such a vehicle and one designed by a man who decided to spice a Trabi and a Ferrari together. This was a good museum to visit on Long Night of the Museums as it wasn't really worth the €7 fee. However, when part of the combined €15 ticket, it proved to be good value indeed and the 45 minutes we spent here were very much a good start to the evening.

We were tempted to go to the Filmprogramm „Inventing Queer Cinema” at Deutsche Kinemathek over the road as they were showing five queer films. However, I didn't realise they were 90 minutes in length each, and we didn't really have the time. Therefore, we headed over to the Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation calling in at the Topography of Terror en route. We didn't realise this latter place existed, which sits on the former headquarters of some of the worst Nazi buildings. A bit of the Berlin Wall is here, while there is an exhibition hall that detailed how much the average German really knew about Nazi atrocities. What I hadn't realised was that the terrorising of critics of the Nazi regime had started so early, with public pillorying quite common from March 1933. The persecution of the Jews also started around this time and there were some sobering and disturbing images here. As this is a free exhibition, we didn't stay too long, and headed over to the DCfDER shortly thereafter. Part of the reason for this was Seebass's hunger and I knew that refugees were serving traditional food in the foyer. We bought some crispy burek and a beer, sitting down to watch an acrobat show near the lift area. Once done, we decided to check out the temporary exhibit, which was 10 artists' interpretations of life on the current Polish/German border. Post 1945, when Poland shifted westwards, many Germans were displaced from this region. Subsequently, many Poles were displaced from lands which are now Ukraine. Over 14 million people were affected and this was something I didn't know too much about. These photographs explored that. Some, such as German memorials to WWI soldiers in modern-day Poland, really highlighted the changing borders while others focused on domestic homes which had to be vacated. Some people returned decades later, searching for a sense of place that they never really found. Another topic also looked at youth clubs that operate on the Polish/German border, providing a changing link between the past and future. One of the photographers was there and gave us a guided tour of her exhibit, which involved her grandmother moving from Ukraine to Poland. There, she found the photo album of the former German family she displaced, and kept the photographs. The Swastika on the front was scratched off, but we know not by whom. This was a cause of some reflection, particularly concerning what is home and what isn't. The exhibition upstairs, that detailed the history of this mass migration, was fascinating from a political standpoint while on the middle floor there were stories from other forced migrations through history from Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Uganda, and other countries. I would have stayed here much longer, particularly in the top part about the German-Polish post-WW2 forced migrations, but we had other places to be. This is a free museum too, so I can just come back another time. The Long Night of the Museums does allow one to sample things and then come back for a more in-depth visit later should one wish.

With the evening getting heavy, we decided to check out Hamburger Bahnhof. It now houses a contemporary art exhibition, but we were more interested in the architecture. As we had to pass through Berlin Hauptbahnhof, we got to check out the new S15 platforms, which have been installed very recently. The authorities kept the construction of this very quiet as it just appeared from nowhere and looks very sleek indeed. A new line up to Gesundbrunnen from Hauptbahnhof is certainly very useful. There was an opening day furmeet back there on Friday in July I think, but I was working and couldn't go. I only found out about it about 40 minutes in advance too. Anyway, we frequently pass this building with its bright green frontage so it was good to finally enter. Built in the 1840s but closed down in 1884, this was the original railway station for trains to Hamburg. As you enter, this is obvious, but interestingly, the track bed had been replaced by 400,000 wooden cubes. This was part of an art exhibit called 'CHANEL Commission: Lina Lapelytė. We Make Years Out of Hours' and people could construct towers with them. Under the grey steel beams of the station, it was all rather surreal, and it was fun messing about for a bit. We explored a few of the halls, but not all of them. There was a Forgery exhibit in Hall H6, a long way from the main station, that was a bit of a bust. Wolfie was struggling to walk and when we got there, it was an arts and crafts thing with no spare tables to do the arting or crafting. We did see the corridor of 26 spherical lights all with the word EXIT written on them though. In Hall H2, we enjoyed 'What Still Holds' by Shilpa Gupta, with the huge concrete letters spelling TRUTH being my highlight. There were 21 pencil tips all stood end to end to symbolise fragility, and a dark room with swinging lights and whispering voices. At the end, there were messages on those old-style message boards you got at train stations in the 1970s, but I didn't really understand this one. It was an interesting quarter hour though and although I wanted to go and see some of the other rooms, Seebass wanted to head off, so we decided to move on to our next adventure.

That was 'Designing Berlin' at the Werkbundarchiv or Museum of Things. As we were making our way there via Museumsinsel, we stumbled across a glorious double-towered church, the Friedrichswerdersche Church. Built in the 1820s, this used to sit on a quaint square in a narrow neighbourhood until the East German government bulldozed most of it to make wide boulevards. Now the Foreign Office sits across from it, with this area being amazingly quiet despite it being just off Unten den Linden. The church has since been deconsecrated and is a museum for 19th century marble sculpture. This was interesting enough, but it's the architecture of the building that's most wondrous. The red tile roof is most striking and only one of the two towers was partially damaged in Allied bombings so much of it survived intact, which is rare for Berlin. You can also climb onto the first floor and find out more about Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the man who designed the church (Schinkel is more well known for designing the Bauakademie, Konzerthaus and Altes Museum in Berlin, and Potsdam's Nikolaikirche.). There is a full marble statue of him downstairs. Wolfie sat next to this while we went exploring upstairs, savouring in the wonderful view of the church from all angles. On one side of this there were marble busts of various famous 19th century people, most of whom I did not know. This was a glorious diversion from our planned itinerary and one that made the evening that extra bit more special.

The Werkbundarchiv is dedicated to design from the 20th and 21st centuries. Most things here were separated into form or function - so there were things classed by colour, or type, or utility - while many exhibits charted us through the different design styles from the functional 1920s through to the plastic-obsessed 1970s to beyond. Some of the exhibits highlighted the superfluousness of capitalism - chintzy commemorative plates and other tat for example - while there were some shocking things too like 'Choke a Duck' with real flapping motion and a plush cat that had been run over by a car, which were said to promote violence. One corner of this small museum was dedicated to Berlin design through the ages while another looked at what happens when a nightclub closes down. How do you document evidence? How much can you retain of the lifestyle and experiences enjoyed at this club. These were very interesting fundamental questions that I had never considered before.

By the time we finished here, it was approaching 1am. We could have gotten the complimentary blue line bus route - a number of different free buses (and one vintage S-Bahn train we didn't get to see) had been put on for the event - but we thought taking the U2 to Gleisdreieck was easier. There, it was a quick walk to the Deutsches Tecknik Museum. There, we met Baloki sat on a deckchair, Whiskian in the queue for drinks, and Procyon pottering around the planes. I thought there would be beer - had I realised there wasn't, I may have steered Baloki into ending at the Musical Instruments Museum instead - but my gin and tonic was nice enough. The bartender asked how I'd like it, by which he said whether I wanted enough lime to rip my face off (of course I did), and the drink he mixed was good. At €7.50, I only wanted one though. We sat on the roof, under the bomber, and chilled, while watching U-Bahn trains roll into Mockernbrucke station (which the security guard had to tell me which station it was). After half an hour, with the museum closing, that's where we headed. Seebass left us to join the U1 to Warschauer Str. while we headed west down the U7 back to Spandau. Here, we got more drink from the Spati, having only had one beer and one gin and tonic all evening (the others had stopped for a break at Hardy's Bar in Bulowstr.). As we were crossing the road, some dickhead in a fast car shouted abuse at us and threw some liquid which splashed the back of my leg a bit. It put a dampener on a good evening, but then it's always worth ignoring Billy Big Bollocks types who can shout abuse at pedestrians then bolt off at 40km/h in their car. I got over it pretty quickly and we had a nice wind down prior to bed.

After two days of pretty heavy events, we decided to take it easy on Sunday. This was useful, as I found out that my poem had made the Aberacon conbook and so I needed to update my website with this information. It was another late start, which allowed us to ease into the day. Whiskian, as he had done the day before and would do on the Monday, left the house early as he was interested in taking some street photography. On the Saturday, Baloki had joined him, but on Sunday the fox came around to our house for around 1:30pm. We then debated what to do, deciding to check out Spandauer Altstadtfest & WeinSommer in the town centre. They had converted the market place into a wine cellar, with a stage at one end with traditional live German music. As with any event, there was the usual medley of beer stands, sausage concessions, and other stalls, while Procyon refused to get his face painted as a raccoon despite Wolfie offering to stump up the money. Procyon wanted to get some Georgian food, but the queue was too long so we decided to swerve it, instead grabbing a Thuringer Bratwurst (it's always from Thuringen) from a different place. After a few minutes, Procyon gave up and decided to get a snausage too. We then walked around the market place looking for a place to sit. Baloki wanted somewhere out of the sun, which somewhat limited our options, meaning we ended up being tucked behind an Italian wine truck at the furthest point from the stage. I would have liked to have tried German wine, but with four of us, this spot was as good as any. We opted to get 0.1cl measures of wine, which to be fair were filled generously, and at the Italian place we had two glasses. We then did find another seating area near one of the German stalls, where we had a third glass. Again, this was meant to be 0.1cl but when chatting to the lady, she seemed to like us, and gave us 0.2cl at the lower price. This did mean that I'd had over half a bottle of admittedly nice wine on two slices of toast, necessitating a Pfannkuchen from Thoben as he left the area. It was a nice time sitting outside and absorbing the vibe, tainted only by the fact it's now the Dog Days of Summer, the best thing about that being the name.

With little else to do, we decided to go to our old stomping ground at Richard-Wagner-Platz as there's a bar by the river there which seemed like a good place to sit (again in the shade). Whiskian met us at the station, having had to wait about 20 minutes due to our own tardiness (the donut took quite a while to obtain). We showed our friends where we used to live on Guerickestr. and then made our way to the river. They have built an annoying green fence since we lived in the area in 2021, meaning you can no longer sit on the water's edge and dangle your feet in the stream. I suppose it prevents people from falling in though. We nabbed a few deckchairs, sat them by the river, and enjoyed a couple of beers while watching the boats move up and down. We liked the two kayakers with their dog the best.

After this, we went over to the Ethiopian restaurant Adis Ababa, which was nearby. Indeed, this was one of the reasons why we had chosen this place as a few of us were experiencing mobility issues from various causes. Wolfe was one of them, but is foot was holding up very well considering the previous few days' activities. The lady in the restaurant recognised me and I think was delighted to see us. We ended up ordering two sharing plates for three people each, which should have been fine for the five of us. Alas, we ended up leaving an awful lot of it, not least because they seemed to bring out an excess of delicious but dense spongy bread. The food was as incredible as ever, and I really enjoyed it, but we ended up leaving feeling quite bloated. This wasn't ideal as we made our way to BRLO, with Baloki deciding to call it a night beforehand and heading back to his hotel. We were initially going to go to the 501 Union Jack Whisky Bar, but beer was the preference. Alas, it sat rather heavy, meaning we could only have one before we were ready to call it a day. As before, we headed back home, but not before Whiskian caught a glimpse of a rather dapper pink suit in a bridal store. He resolved to go back the following day and see if he could buy it. He talked about it quite a bit once we had gotten home, where we chatted for a couple of hours and whiled away some time.

Monday was Procyon's actual birthday so after we had swapped cards and gifts (Baloki bought him a card with a VIP badge and a plush raccoon and gave Wolfie a fox for his birthday as there were no wolves) we left it to him to decide what we would do. The consensus was to go on the 7-Seen Fahrt down the River Havel, as this involved minimal walking and would be a nice thing to do on a summer's day. Whiskian, as before, headed into town earlier than us to do some photography, while he also had a pink suit to acquire. Alas, upon arriving at the bridal store, he noticed it was shut and you could only get in by appointment only. This was disappointing and we urged him to give them a ring, but I think time was against him, what with his flight being Tuesday lunchtime. It was a little touch and go whether he would get back to Spandau to take the boat trip, but he needn't have worried as, once we arrived, we discovered the stricken vessel still in port but the trip cancelled due to operational reasons. This put a spanner in the works and I had to rack my brain to work out what to do instead. Alt-Tegel was an option, but we decided instead to go south down to Alt-Kladow and take the F10 ferry over the river to Wannsee. While this wasn't the three-and-a-half hour ferry trip as promised, the 20-minute ride was at least some of it, while Alt-Kladow is where the cruise would have stopped anyway. With this being more walking than anticipated, Wolfie decided to stay at home, so we were a foursome for the rest of the afternoon.

The bus down to Kladow was impossibly slow, made worse by the schools tipping out and thus it being full of kids. We got there in the end though and had a quick walk through the village, stopping to admire the children's swing rides in the form of two hedgehogs and a fox. We took a picture of Baloki riding the latter, then walked down to the lake, settling in one of the shoreline eateries where we grabbed a beer. The F10 ferry is only every hour, but the one 35 minutes after we had sat down would have made the afternoon somewhat rushed. We therefore chilled and waited for the next one, boarding shortly before 5:30pm. We weren't sure whether we needed to purchase a new AB ticket or not, but the ferry staff were happy with what we had, and soon we were chugging over the lake with the sailors and novelty boats in the shape of a garden shed renters. I pointed out a few of the sites on either side of the lake before we docked in Wannsee some 20 minutes later. The last time I had been here, it was a Sunday and thus quite busy, but it was desolate at 6pm on a Monday despite the sunny weather. We went to a toilet which was partly flooded, with urinal backsplash on my legs, before we yomped up the hill and spied the high-end villas that dot the shoreline.

With little else to do, we caught the S7 S-Bahn back into the city centre, as Procyon had booked his birthday meal at a Korean restaurant near Stadtmitte for 7:30pm. En route, we got off at Grunewald where I showed everyone Gleis 17, the platform from which many Jews left for the concentration camps from 1941. The atmosphere here is noticeably heavy and the memorial is simple, yet powerful. I probably should have warned people what this was prior to going, and maybe it wasn't a great thing to do on someone's birthday, but we were passing and it's an important part of the city's history, so it was worth calling in. We were only here for a short while though, before boarding the train to Friedrichstr., from where we walked down to the restaurant.

Wolfie was waiting for us outside, despite us being 15 minutes early ourselves, and I was really happy to see him. Kit and Sandy were to be 15 minutes late, but we eased ourselves into our surroundings with local Cass beer and soju. I don't think I had this Korean rice wine before and it was surprisingly nice. The aniseed flavour wasn't too pronounced, while it was a mellow sipping affair. After debating whether we should get Bibimbap or Korean BBQ, we settled on the latter, not least because that's what everyone else was doing. We ordered the full platter of meats - marinated beef, belly pork, other pork, shrimpy bobs and tofu - and shared them all between us. The six pots of sides that came with each portion were varied, with the potato one my favourite. The two dips - a brown spicy paste and a salty oil - really worked to marinate the meat, while the whole concept of grilling in front of you is one I'll never grow tired of. The restaurateur demonstrated how to cook the meat and we all took turns, wrapping everything up in a lettuce leaf, as is traditional. There was plenty of rice too and it made for a filling, not too bloating meal. 

The Castle was the next destination, but Baloki made his way back to the hotel, largely because he had a very early flight. The remaining six headed up there though, despite having to wait 17 bastard minutes for the U6 to arrive. The service irregularity was now regular again though, unlike my current bowel movements. Getting to the Castle, we caught the tail end of quiz night, but still manage to snaffle a seat. We ended up staying here for three, pushing it as late as we could before having to get the RE4 out of Hauptbahnhof. Kit and Sandy had left after one, but the remaining four of us chatted and chilled, whiling Procyon's birthday into Wolfie's. The party continued back at home, where we shared out Ardbeg's Smoketrails whisky and ate a very large number of tzatziki crisps, Gut und Gunstig Pringles and sweet popcorn. I dread to think how much weight I've put on this weekend, probably far too much. I was also feeling somewhat tired after the weekend's festivities, with my mental health not being particularly strong throughout. Making things worse was the human shit in the toilet on the train, into which I accidentally trod. It looked like a squashed chocolate cake at the side of the bowl and my front left shoe just caught it. Everyone thought it was hilarious, but despite my best efforts at clean up, you could still smell it on my shoe. This made me feel very self-conscious, which made things in my head far worse. This contributed to a misunderstanding between Wolfie and I which, fortunately, we have patched up.

Everyone had to leave today, which made for a sad start to Wolfie's birthday. Baloki had gone independently, while Whiskian cut it fine to get his flight at 1:15pm. Procyon is off to Heidelberg, so I walked him to the station for the 11:37am train. He picked up a coffee from Espresso House - a coffee shop where he, Whiskian, and Baloki had spent some of early Sunday afternoon while we were getting ready - which means they have been there more often than I have. It seemed nice enough though. There was confusion about his seat reservation as the carriage numbers weren't right, but hopefully he resolved that on the train. Once I had seen him off, I went to the supermarket to do some food shopping before having to resume work following our long-weekend off.

The plan had been to go out tonight for Wolfie's birthday, but we are both so damn tired, we couldn't be bothered. We haven't even cooked yet so we will likely just go to McDonald's despite the number of Hello Fresh meals we have decomposing in our refrigerator. I have spent the day either sleeping or catching up with work, with the need to get new clients starting to become critical, while Wolfie has spent a good chunk of the day in bed too. With the amount of booze we have had this weekend, along with the rich food, we kinda feel a few days of normality is what's needed. Hopefully, we can celebrate his birthday properly soon.

I had planned to go to the Leeds Meet last Saturday, but concern about my eyes meant I was somewhat delayed, not to mention despondent. I was also concerned about my alcohol consumption, what with having spent time at my father's the week before and with my mother the following week. Finally, with the Yorkshire Furs Summer Party later today, along with ongoing financial pressures, I thought it would make sense to skip the meet and have a weekend at home. This is what we did - doing some much-needed work on our overgrown garden and working on a few personal projects too.

I had aimed to work on Monday and take the rest of the week off, but people hadn't got back to me, resulting in a full working day on Friday instead. This was somewhat annoying as I was out with my former colleagues on Thursday night. This took place in The Brewery Tap, where I drank five pints of admittedly weak strength session IPA. It was great catching up with colleagues from the best job I had ever had, and I can't believe it has been over six years since I was made redundant post a venture capitalist takeover. We swapped stories of those times, caught up on what we are doing now, and basically picked up where we had left things back in May when we did similar. At times I felt a little out of place, but ultimately was thrown back into the conversation with some other topic, and I did feel very much at home back amongst their company. It was a shame I had to end the night when I did, catching the penultimate train home, but ultimately I did have a busy work day the next day.

I called off at Leeds on my way down from visiting my mother. I went up on Tuesday, scouting out the impressive new Darlington station extension when I arrived. The train was 38 minutes late and the usual hell from Cross Country, but at least I am eligible for £3.95 Delay Repay. The new station looks very good, with two platforms on the exterior of the Victorian red-bricked arched station. A walkway has been cut through the roof with brand new toilets and shops on the other side, along with a car park. The walkway cladding is already peeling off but the rust look works well with the original building and hopefully it'll make trains more reliable. I don't know what they'll do with Platform 1 or the two bay platforms 2 and 3, but maybe they'll be useful overflow.

After my mother and step-father picked me up, we went back to theirs, where my mother cooked me a delicious brisket dinner. We then had many glasses of wine while chatting then watching YouTube. The evening ended watching risible nostalgia porn about the 1980s and 1990s, which had about 70% of truth in it, then other misleading statements. It was easy to see how it bridged credibility and misleading.

Wednesday I had my German class, the second part of A2.2 which I started on Monday. There had only been two people in the class, which made for a very intensive session, not least because our new teacher is very full-on and quickfire. Things had eased a little on Wednesday as there were four of us, but it was a far greater mental workout than the first part of the A2.2 class had been. Earlier in the day, we went to The Coach House in Middleton Tyas for lunch. It turned out to be quite a nice sunny day, but we opted to eat inside rather than outside. I had a delicious steak, something I hadn't had for quite some time, along with chips and salad. The Rat IPA was nice too. The place is in a converted barn and is quite wide and airy. It was also quite busy for a Wednesday lunchtime, with the rural setting quite charming. Later on Wednesday, after my lesson, we listened to many editions of Mark Steel's In Town including those from Barnard Castle, Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Huddersfield and Cambridge. The amount of research that goes into these is incredible, with every show quite different due to the local stories unearthed. I had seen his show in Skipton about a decade ago and I remember it being similarly enjoyable, while of course I had seen him at the Edinburgh Fringe just last week. Much more wine was had here, which made my mother's comments about my alcohol consumption the following day all the more frustrating (although she is right, when I am back in the UK, my alcohol consumption does go through the roof, hence why I am not drinking tonight).

Thursday was one of those summer days that felt like late autumn, so we headed to Darlington's Hopetown railway museum to check out the Wallace and Gromit AR Trail. This involved downloading an app and visiting seven stations across the museum, where you had to do a range of tasks. One was finding a code, another was picking some tools and placing them in a toolbox, while another saw you cleaning shit up. There were also a few photographs including one where you look like Feathers McGraw and another where you are dressed like Gromit. Although largely for children, we were told that many adults had been getting involved too, and we thoroughly enjoyed it, despite my step-father's initial reservations. We did have to be told where the seventh station was though, as it was hidden in the museum, but once we had followed the narrative and helped Wallace build his rocket, we went back to the front desk to get our sticker. We declined taking a photo in the giant frame, although my mother did buy me a Gromit plush. It was then back to her house for gammon steaks before I had to catch my train back to Leeds.

It was a good trip to my mother's despite my step-father's occasional grumpiness, particularly on the Thursday. Henry, the nine-year-old cocker spaniel, was very bouncy and assertive, having just come out of surgery having dealt with a legion in his leg. Wilma was far more subdued, while she also had stinky breath. I enjoyed spending an hour alone with my mother as we toured around Barnard Castle together, while next time, it will be great to go to the nearby Bowes Museum too. She was also looking at houses in Scotland on my behalf when I told her we may consider moving there. It's just an outside thing right now, but it's certainly a possibility, depending how things go. The only negative, apart from my step-father's grump, is my mother caring way too much about Harry and Meghan, who she seems to viscerally hate for no real reason. I'm amazed how anyone cares so much about the Royals at the best of times, but this in particular completely eludes me.

Friday was predominantly a work day as I said, but Wolfie's parents did turn up at lunchtime, when Wolfie was still in bed. They helped us move some of the sofa out of the living room, freeing us a lot more space in there. They also removed our old books which have been lying in bags for the best part of 18 months. I feel bad chucking things out - something about my pantheism I guess - but it needed to be done and I am glad they were able to help. When we come back again, we'll keep working at decluttering the place as it's sorely needed.

It has been another exceptionally busy week, so much so that I am going to have to work on Saturday prior to me flying back to the UK in the evening. I had hoped to take some time off during the next fortnight to see family, but it's looking like my time will be limited. A lot of this is due to work projects. I am really enjoying editing, but it's taking more time than I anticipated. Juggling a few clients simultaneously is also quite a challenge. Still, I am happier than I have been in a while, even if my money issues have not yet been fully resolved. I am hoping that things pick up as we plunge into the autumn, but at least I feel my career is on the right path.

I am also working on two major writing projects in furry right now, which are taking up a lot of time too. I can't yet reveal what they are, but they are incredibly exciting and I am honoured to be involved in both. Hopefully, they will come good in due course.

Wolfie and I were tempted to go to Fuerst Wiacek tonight, but work got in the way. This means the only thing I have done this week is seeing Utunu and his son on Tuesday evening. I got to them late, around 7pm. They were having a nightmare trying to get everything set up, with their phone being locked by their U.S. provider complicating everything. I tried to get them registered with a Deutschland Ticket - even dragging them to the BVG stand in Alexanderplatz 15 minutes before it closed - but they wanted an Anmeldung, which they had left back in the hotel room. It was the latest in a long list of things that had gone wrong that day. Everyone was highly stressed but a meal of Currywurst and Pommes from Curry 61 did the trick, even if eating in the restaurant was less than ideal due to how hot it was. We then sat in Alexanderplatz for half an hour, chatting and soaking up the vibrant atmosphere.

After this, we headed back to their hotel on Boddinstrasse as the phone issue had been resolved. This allowed them to sort a few things out, while I sat in the hotel lobby drinking (Berliner Berg for €4 seemed reasonable). Utunu then headed over to his son's new place to help him set up his PC. While he was doing this, I grabbed a delicious ice cream and walked around the streets of Neukolln for a while, marvelling at how busy they were on a Tuesday evening.

I then headed to Muted Horn, sitting inside again, away from the people on the outside terrace (even though one did have a dog who looked grumpy when he was told to get down from clambering over the benches). I grabbed a beer and waited for Utunu to be done. He had a 6:35am flight and had asked me to help him catch the bus to the airport. This left outside Rathaus Neukolln shortly before 3am, giving us quite some time to kill. He joined me for a few beers and we discussed writing, before the emotions started pouring out over various things. Muted Horn shut at midnight and in the end, we ended up in the lobby of his hotel, where I grabbed another drink while we waited for the bus. With 20 minutes to go, I made sure he got where he needed to go, catching my bus going in the opposite direction some 15 minutes later. This got me back into Spandau for 4:30am, just as the sun was rising over the beautiful Rathaus. I grabbed a sausage roll at the station, regretting my alcohol consumption and potentially making an arse of myself, and got to bed shortly after 5am. It was great seeing Utunu - I hadn't seen him since MFF 2024 - and I hope he is able to come back to Germany soon. I'd love to show him around some more.

It's hard to know where to begin when discussing the events of this weekend. I'm still numb and distraught over everything that happened and while the perpetrator has now been killed by police, the damage to our community will last many years to come. Having been indirectly caught up in the 7/7 bombings in 2005, I know it's going to affect me too. I'll go through everything chronologically, as it seems the most obvious way to structure my thoughts.

My friend Houdini was staying over this weekend and the three of us - him, myself and Wolfie - headed down to the parade for 12:30pm. We had arranged to meet the furs at Potsdamer Platz, congregating outside the Canadian Embassy. I was expecting about eight furs to attend, as many were in Vienna for Awoostria, but in the end we had around thirty. They came in dribs and drabs, and as we had to wait for people who were late, we didn't join the parade itself until about 2pm.

I was wearing my full pup gear, while Houdini was a leather biker pony. He, in particular, was stopped for a lot of pictures but I attracted some attention too. This started on the platform of Spandau station where I thought a family of kids were waving at me only for me to realise they were looking at the train pulling into the platform behind me. That was somewhat embarrassing. Still, on the train, we chatted to a nice lady who was going to her first ever Pride and she was very excited to meet her friend there. We briefed her on the route and where we think she should go to have the best experience, and she was grateful. Quite a few people on the train were rather wary of us, but as we chatted to this lady, they ended up softening quite significantly. In the end, we were somewhat accepted, even by the real dog on the train, and a party atmosphere had started to develop.

It was 29C in Berlin yesterday, so standing in the sun made for one super hot dog. We kept to the shade when we could, but of course on the parade route that was tricky. We stopped off for a bottle of Becks at crowd gouging prices and I had a bit of an argument with Wolfie, not least when we lost the other furs, who ended up being two trucks ahead of us. The lady couldn't understand what I was saying under my dog hood and I really needed Wolfie to help me. We patched things up quickly, but I have been under a lot of stress of late, and I get quite short-tempered as a result. It's one of my worst character traits, but I am trying to work on it. It's not been easy though.

The parade itself was fine apart from one clearly high man who kept snagging my jockstrap. At Bulowstrasse, we stopped again for our traditional trip to Edeka to get more beer, while Houdini bought some Magnums. Wolfie needed a sit down, so we ended up resting here a while before he headed back home due to his ankles. Houdini and I marched on, joining up with the British Embassy staff who just happened to be marching around the corner as we rejoined the parade. Approaching Nollendorfplatz, we waved at the people on their balconies who were happy to see us, not realising later that from one of these balconies, someone would attack the march with an airsoft gun. This was not widely reported due to later events, but it did happen. Once we got to Nollendorfplatz, we decided to call it a day as Houdini was struggling with the heat and full biking leathers. We got back to Spandau at 6pm, where I noticed I had sunburn across my eyes like some sort of inverse raccoon as this was the only part of exposed skin on my body all day.

After a shower and a rest, we weighed up what to do with the rest of the evening. We needed food and Houdini fancied pizza, so we headed to Cappuccino, which is very close to where we live. They took quite a while to serve us, particularly when we needed the bill, and this was why we decided to skip going back into the city for the concerts at the end of the parade. This was a touch-and-go thing and had we decided differently, then we may have been caught up in what was about to unfold. In the end, we tried to get to the gay bar in Spandau but none of the outside seats were free, so we ended up in the Spandau Brauhaus where we sat outside and drank a few Spezial Sommerbiers.

It was here when we were alerted to the CSD Parade being evacuated through local Telegram channels. It soon became clear that there had been an attack involving a vehicle, as a number of our friends had seen the emergency services arrive. Some had seen the delivery of body bags while quite a few had been evacuated towards Hauptbahnhof or Unten den Linden. This started to be reported in the German press, but nothing yet in English. I sent a message to my family saying I was okay and Wolfie did the same. I posted a message on Bluesky to do the same. We monitored proceedings, while I spent a lot of time reassuring friends who had reached out to check whether I was okay (thanks for reaching out, it was heartening and very much appreciated).

Our plan was to grab a few beers from a Spati and sit by the Havel. Houdini wanted Spreequelle Ginger Beer and we toured a few convenience stores trying to find it. Alas, we couldn't, but at least Wolfie and I found some Stortebekers for a reasonable price - €2.40 as opposed to the €1.75 they cost in the supermarket. We kept monitoring what was going on, checking in with friends and making sure everyone was okay. I must have known about 100 people at the march yesterday and keeping track of everyone proved tough. As the evening wore on and the severity of the attack became known, I was at least reassured that no one we knew was reported missing. The channels seemed reasonably benign in that regard, but my heart ached over the attack on our community. A day of wonderful colour and vibrancy had been tainted by an evil darkness. A cloud was now hanging over the day.

We headed back home around 1am pretty deflated and headed to bed. We awoke about 9:30am and let Houdini out as he had to catch his train back to Bonn. We noticed the suspect had a name but was still on the run. We headed back to bed, the emotion of it all being too much. My brain couldn't really comprehend what was going on, made worse by the tiredness after two rather heavy days. I just wanted to shut myself off from the world.

When I awoke, I discovered there was going to be a memorial at the Brandenburger Tor at 2pm. It was already 2pm when I read this, so I made some lunch, then decided to go down there anyway. En route, I saw my ponyplay friend Nighty at the traffic lights in Spandau, someone else I was glad to see was okay. By the time I arrived, it was after 4pm and yesterday's warm sun had been replaced by a torrential downpour. It seemed appropriate. Most of the speeches, which I believe were incandescent and defiant, were done but there were about 100 people congregated around a memorial of candles, flowers, and placards. On my way to the crowd, someone commented positively on my unicorn t-shirt, which lightened my mood a little. I then joined the crowd, my community, in mourning. Many were there with friends, having literal shoulders to cry on, but I was on my own. This may have made it tougher, but I felt it important to be there, even if it were for only the last half hour of the event. I welled up, I cried, I looked up at the Brandenburg Gate and the music that was playing got to me. I stayed there beyond the time the music stage was torn down, just existing amongst my fellow mourners.

As I left the memorial, a nice couple stopped me and asked how I felt. It was nice to talk to someone and these people were friendly enough, although during our conversation, they clearly were devout Christians and may have been trying to convert me. If they were, it was subtle, and I don't hold it against them particularly. I just wanted someone to talk to. One of them was from Munster and I chatted about the time I got drunk in The Whisky Dungeon there - he seemed to like that - while the lady was from Pankow so I talked about there a bit too. The conversation lasted fifteen minutes and they did ask me whether I wanted them to pray for anything on my behalf, but there was nothing. I just asked them to pray for the victims and their families. Nothing else seemed appropriate.

By the time I got home, I was feeling a little better, although the edge was still there. I was still following the news reports - Sky News being much better than the BBC - while the German outlets added much more context. We ordered sushi, not wanting to cook, and when it arrived we read the breaking news that the perpetrator had been shot dead in an allotment in Spandau. This is where I live, so I started wondering where it was. When I checked again after my meal and it said Ruhlebener Strasse, I knew it was very near me. Indeed, my road is perpendicular to that actual street. This made it literally around the corner.

I'm not sure of the wisdom of this, but we decided to walk over the bridge and see how close it was. The fact that we could see blue lights as we crossed suggested very. Indeed, he was shot in an allotment that I was familiar with, that is only one quarter of a mile from my home. As we watched the police at work from a safe distance, a lady from one of the German news channels asked me for an interview, which I did (I did it in English, wishing I had the dexterity in German to explain these more complicated concepts - I probably could have given it a go, but I feared making a serious grammar error). I'm not sure what I could say, but I ended up talking about my feelings. How I am glad that his guy had been caught, but I would have rather had a trial. How I found it strange that usually sleepy Spandau was now the scene of a major incident, and why I hope the LGBTQ+ community won't be cowed by this heinous attack. I expressed how impressed I was by the politicians, police, emergency services, and the authorities throughout this incident as they handled it extremely well. I said this had given me some hope on what has been a very dark day. I probably rambled too much, but then I just wanted someone to talk to.

Only time will tell what will happen now. Berlin has state elections in two months and this attack by an Islamist is going to be whipped up by the worst people in society. Conversely, we must stand our ground against such terror attacks and must never back down. Berlin Pride is a huge event, attracting over a million people, and is one of the highlights of the year in one of the greatest cities in the world. Its colour, its liberation, its protest are all core parts of a liberal society and this is invaluable. It's what makes Berlin Berlin.

We must never be silenced by the regressive forces of any political or religious persuasion - it's why I went to the memorial today and why I wore my gender fluid flag with pride. I hope CSD comes back next year stronger and brighter. The pain will recede, despite it being most acute right now, as this does feel like an attack on my community and values. I imagine the pain felt by the friends and family of those injured or deceased must be significantly worse though. The thought of going out to such a positive event and never coming back is terrifying and my heart aches for the family and friends of all involved.

This was meant to be a weekend of celebration. It became a weekend of tragedy. But we will fight on and prevail because love is stronger than hate.

I started my new German language course last week, having decided it made sense to start at A2.2. I thought I was a little more advanced than that, but my fears have largely been realized - in terms of vocabulary I am, but in terms of grammar, I am not. Consequently, it is proving to be half-useful and probably makes sense to start from here and attempt to secure B1 by the end of the year. That's certainly doable and with the group only numbering six, it is giving me plenty of opportunity to practice and learn. It's also not too daunting, while the homework seems to be going fine too. It's only a four-week course, two nights a week online, so we'll see how things look in mid-August but I may continue through.

There have been two main furry events this week. Thursday was the Fureigners Meet, which I didn't arrive at until 9:30pm due to work commitments. Wolfie came with me, but it was quite a small meet, with most of our usual friends there. We still had a nice chat with a few people though and once everyone had left, a trio of UK people from Hastings ended up playing on the pool table in the space we had reserved. They were here for a friend's wedding today and were great fun to chat with, wanting to know about all the craft beer spots and the like. In a way, we found it easier to talk to them than the furries, and were sad we had to leave to get the 00:53 train home (which has gladly now been reinstated). It was great to chat with them though and I hope they're enjoying their time here.

Today, Saturday, was the LGBTQ+ market down at Nollendorfplatz. This is one of the highlights on the calendar and Blue Panther had dropped me a message earlier in the week to say he was coming up from Basel. I arrived at 5:30pm and had a mooch around before meeting up with his crew around 6pm. We had a couple of beers, one of them bought me a snausage, and we largely just chatted about stuff. They had to leave at 8pm, leaving me on my own, but I hooked up with Kebi and Max, who were dancing to a rave on the Boxxer stage. This was quite fun too and I had an enjoyable three-quarters of an hour down here before making my way back via the supermarket for some beers and McDonald's. I also saw Nighty in full pony gear at the event, but didn't see anyone I knew at the Quaelgeist stall. Ultimately, though, it was a fun afternoon with a great vibe, and I even got to wear the new dress I bought with Notefox last week. This was good, despite a few dodgy looks from people going to and from the event, and I hope to wear more dresses and skirts again soon. The market is always a nice prelude to CSD next week, although in a way, I wish I were in Leeds this weekend for their Pride as it looks great fun.

The only other thing that happened this week was England's infuriating loss to Argentina in the World Cup. We were good value for the first hour and deserved our goal, but parking the bus and letting Argentina attack us for the final half hour was tactical suicide and only asking for trouble. Their cheating antics and political posturing was grating, leaving a very sour taste in the mouth, as did all of the furries mocking England after the result. To underscore how much of an opportunity missed this was, England went on to beat France 6-4 in the third-place game today. Never had we had a better chance to win the World Cup than this. Still, this is England's best ever performance since winning the tournament in 1966 so there is something to be grateful for there I suppose. Still rankles a bit though.

We have just come back from seeing System of a Down at Olympiastadion. Like with Linkin Park last year, the whole perimeter had concessions, with people wandering around serving beer from backpacks. This was an eye-watering €7.50, but we did get a custom System of a Down glass for an additional €3 (it was the Pfand) which makes for a nice souvenir. The food was overpriced too, but we did get some pick and mix on the way out. We could have got some merch, but it's usually quite spendy, plus I found it a little annoying they called their tour the Europe/United Kingdom tour as if the UK isn't in Europe.

Doors opened at 4pm, but due to work, we couldn't get down there until nearer 6pm. This meant we missed the first support act, Acid Bath, but we did catch Queens of the Stone Age. They aren't really my thing to be honest, but they did play all of their hits including 'No One Knows' and 'Go With The Flow' so I was happy. The atmosphere was exuberant and they did a great job of warming everyone up.

System of a Down came on at 8pm and played the best part of two hours. I have never been in a gig with such passionate fans, with many of them singing along all the way through. The mosh pits looked intense, and someone had even smuggled some red flares into the stadium, which they let off during 'Toxicity'. There were some pretty solid looking moshpits while at one point, there was some Norwegian rowing going on too. Two people dressed as bananas also turned up, one of whom I bumped into outside the toilet as we were leaving. We were right in the middle of a row, halfway up, so people kept coming and going. This was a little frustrating, but at least my bladder didn't fail me. In many ways, I would have liked to have been down in the moshpit myself, not least because from our vantage point at the side, we couldn't see what was going on in the background. This is a core part of the performance, so I do feel we missed out, even if our views were rather good.

They played all of their hits, but my favourites were probably 'Lost In Hollywood' and 'Roulette', two of their more quiet songs. They were clearly having a great time, with Serj laughing his way through most of the set. The energy and musicianship was fantastic and it really was a first-rate evening. Afterwards, we decided to hang around the venue a while and let the trains clear, which was a good idea until we bumped into a pissed bloke at Spandau station who we believe wanted our souvenir glasses. We didn't give them to him. So yep, an astonishing evening seeing a great band, singing myself hoarse and dancing with some Bulgarians. What more could you want?