Artsy Late-night Parties at Tacheles, Berlin

After Julia and Smitty bought their tickets to come to Amsterdam, I knew we had to squeeze in at least one city trip to another place. Early on in Smitty’s 3-month stay, we escaped for a week in paradise and island-hopped in Greece. But when the three of us get together, we’re usually looking for something pretty crazy, really fun and totally out of the norm. Christian and I had a great time in Berlin with his family one summer—the vibe, the biergartens, and cool, alternative neighborhoods had me itching to dig deeper! I had decided that the next best place that I would live in Europe other than Amsterdam would most certainly be Berlin. And so I had it…the three of us decided to jetset off to Berlin for the weekend! My friend Fiona joined us too and we looked forward to a weekend filled with outdoor bars, a subculture walking tour and spending long hours at Prater.  Our first night in Berlin involved munching on some pho at Monsieur Vuong and bar-hopping in Kreuzberg…until 5AM and we planned on that night being the low-key night…haha.

The next day…it rained…a lot…the entire weekend actually—so any plans outdoors got nixed :(. Fortunately, a friend of a friend referred us to Tacheles, an old squatted art gallery that was a must see which allowed us to see a bit of the alternative Berlin and escape the rain. And it was literally just down the street from where we stayed—The Circus Hostel. After spending a few hours wandering the graffiti-covered hallways, we noticed they had a party that evening, with DJs all night (until 12:30PM THE NEXT DAY!) and a ‘whopping’ 2-3 EUR ‘by donation only’ cover charge—score! So within a few hours we were back at Tacheles. We planned on kicking off the night at Tacheles and continuing on to the famous Berghain. Because we had heard Berghain was strict with cameras, we left ours behind and had no pictures from the night—but the memories are still there. As soon as we walked in, the graffiti-covered walls was illuminated by lights, the bar had cheap beer and Jagermeister and the hallways and stairwell were strewn with hipsters, drinkers, party-goers and young tourists lookin’ to get their dance on. The DJs were some of the best we had heard! For 3 EUR. Let’s just say we quickly forgot about our Berghain plan and did the short walk back to our hostel at a ‘reasonable’ 7AM.

Our crazy night in Tacheles…more like ENTIRE weekend in Tacheles often has us reminiscing and saying ‘Hey…remember Tacheles?’ Which is usually followed by a sneaky smile, a smirk and a giggly ‘YES!'. Sadly, I've heard Tacheles is nearly gone now...but that there are several initiatives to keep it up and running! ::FINGERS CROSSED!::

Party all night in Berlin: CHECK! I’d love to go back and do it all over again.