Everyone always says how great of a city Berlin is. And it's true. The city feels very liveable and has a great culture. We had taken the ICE train from Hamburg (late again), across the fields of northern Germany. I was reading “the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy” and within the first few chapters the protagonists have left the planet earth far behind. I thought to myself that sometimes these express trains feel like a worm-hole through space, the countryside morphing into a blur of fields and trees and houses and memories, rolling into a ball of thought that bounces around our synapses as we pass by, reflecting it all. Then we arrive at the spaceport (train station), and it's like we're in this void in space; we might as well be in a different galaxy sometimes because we have no idea about the city around us- each place feels like a new universe that unravels its mystery before us when we finally step out into these unknown lands.... We have a vague concept of what to expect, but really there's so much to discover and our minds just slowly fill in the blanks, connecting the dots of our imaginations, coloring in the storybook, making pictures and ideas come to life... And don't get me started on how much I wish we had a Babelfish ;)

We were visiting a friend from Montreal, a girl who was moving out of Aliza's apartment when Aliza moved in last year. Paola is from Berlin and was studying in Montreal. We had emailed her and asked about places to play and if she had a couch for us to crash on. We didn't play any shows, but Paola hosted us at her parents' house in the suburbs of Berlin. The Underground (subway) is so good that it wasn't too much of a commute. It was neat to travel across and under town... Since we had arrived late, Paola missed her class, but still had to go to work that night. She met us at the U and walked us to her house. It was a busy day for her, so we made plans to go out the next night with her. Meanwhile, we went out and explored the town. We had heard about the hip area of Kreuzberg, and everything we heard was true. We felt cool just walking down the streets there, like we were already hip ;)

We were looking for food, but instead got beer. I saw a sign saying “sneider-weisse” and my eyes lit up and I said to aliza that we must have a beer here. This beer is a wheat beer and just about the tastiest thing this side of belgium. I had discovered my passion for it when living in Vancouver and it was introduced to me by my good friend Gerrit. He and I and my old bandmate Tim would sit on the balcony of our house in BC and drink these fabulous beers whilst overlooking the ocean and cityscape and mountains that rise 6000 feet out of the ocean. We toasted these old friends in Berlin, and also toasted our joy at being in this intriguing city.

The next day we explored some of the tourist places, like the Dome and other ancient sites. But my heart wasn't in the spirit to be a tourist. I sometimes feel we get a better taste of the true city by being in random areas of the town and meeting the locals and sharing the spirit that is alive at this moment.

We did just this, first going to see a friend of mine from school, then meeting up with Paola. This friend from school is a very talented composer, who was finishing her masters when I was just starting my undergrad three years ago. I heard her Wind Symphony and was amazed at her talent and how she used familiar timbres to create new sounds. Marielle had just moved to Berlin, after a year of study in Paris. She was about to start studying at a new school here, and was very excited to be in this city. Aliza and she and I enjoyed some more Sneider-weisse at a great retro funky bar called A, in the Neukoln part of town. We spoke a lot about music, and all the interesting ways to compose and all the great places to go in Europe and how much good music there is here.

We left to go meet Paola at the bar we had been at the night before. I realized that it was my brother Nick's birthday, so we gave him another toast, hoping that he was having a great day, some 3000 kilometres away...

We went for sushi with Paola, and had some good talks about the city and similarities between here and montreal, and she told us about the local history and....

On the way home the U was under construction so we had to get on a sardine-like bus with a hundred other hot and unhappy people. It was only 10 minutes like this, and then we got out and got a beer for the Underground ride home (you can drink beer anywhere in Germany! Even on the bus!)..