Arrive, Lift Off, Crash

While Hannah was somewhere in Tokyo being more or less cheerful about it, Basti and I executed what I can only describe as a flawless three-point plan at Maike’s housewarming: arrive, ascend, disintegrate. In that order. With full conviction at every stage.

Maike’s new flat in Kreuzberg is enormous and ridiculous in the best way, and the approach to stocking drinks followed two guiding principles: pour in everything available and finish whatever’s left. Somewhere in the middle of that we ran into a blind cat, a praying Italian woman, and someone who sounded aggressively Scandinavian but definitely wasn’t. We bellowed our way through DJ Bobo’s Pray until our faces went red from the shame we were clearly refusing to feel. At some point orange shopping carts were involved, though whether we were riding them through the flat or steering them into a wall I genuinely cannot reconstruct.

Maike—perfect evening, do it every weekend. The night ended for Svenja and me after we’d heard one particular cringe phrase too many times and made our exit into rain we hadn’t accounted for. We rode the U-Bahn home soaking wet while a man behind us burped so violently and so continuously that we spent the whole journey bracing for impact. We were too far gone to care. That’s usually how you know the night was exactly right.