Friday, September 23

After some massive traffic jams on the autobahn, we finally arrived at an art opening at a gallery owned by Tobias, who also represents our artist friend Thomas. Sam joined us there with a friend, and we enjoyed talking to Waylon, a young man originally from Goa who was serving beer. We went down the street afterwards and had pizza, with Sam, Thomas, Bibo, and a friend of theirs from Mexico City.

Saturday, September 24

On Saturday we returned the rental car to the Berlin Zoo place, and walked to C/O Berlin, a photography museum that was featuring “Queerness in Photography”. Downstairs there were two exhibits of historical photographs of crossdressers, a collection by film director Sebastian Lifshitz, and one by artist Cindy Sherman. Upstairs there was an exhibit based on the Virginia Woolf novel “Orlando”, curated by Tilda Swinton, who had starred in the 1992 film. She found some young photographers to make some works based on the novel. The museum bookstore was more eclectic. Going to bookstores in foreign lands makes you aware of the level of censorship that exists in America.

We met Lindsay and Kevin at Jemenitisches Restaurant, a Yemeni place with a couple outlets in Berlin. It’s on Eater’s list of Essential Berlin Restaurants. It’s not fancy, but there were many items which you don’t see elsewhere, especially slow-cooked meats. They said it was always really busy, but we went around 4pm and there were plenty of tables. We were served reasonably quickly, so we had a lot of time to catch the train to the airport, so we could get to Dublin, from where our plane home will leave.