I was strangely apprehensive when my roommate suggested we meet a friend of hers at The Shannon, an Irish Irish pub, not one of the higher-profile ones in Berlin which cater mostly to visitors of the city, but a deeply “green” hangout for ex-pats.

I’ve been lost alone in Wedding or Neukölln at 4 a.m., or skating the edge of safety walking dark roads in between stations in Marzahn after midnight when the local hooligans slink about, but I never felt any trepidation because I knew what I’d do if any confrontation arose — though I’m careful to avoid any such business. Yet hurrying down a cobbled street in the deep chill of December, once we stopped in front of an innocuous-looking unmarked door through which no sound could be heard, I almost declined to enter. I didn’t let my friend know, but she sensed my apprehension and gave one of her brilliant smiles, opened the door and pulled me inside.

That’s one of the simple things I’ve always been amazed by: the soundproofing of buildings here. The prodigious care with which walls are made, their thickness and strength. It takes far longer to build a house or complex in Germany than the edifices they seem to throw up overnight in the US and you can tell in their energy-efficiency and the fact you rarely can hear much through the older houses or flatblocks, even if music or voices are at Mach level.

You wouldn’t have guessed that behind that little black painted door you’d be stunned by the sight of at least a hundred people and music levels that set your hair waving back on your head. Packed shoulder-to-shoulder at tables crammed together before a small chicken-wired stage, many of those faces turned towards us, then after a blink of surprise turned back slowly to their mates.

Immediately upon entry we were confronted with the bar on our right over which hung a huge stuffed crow with wings outspread. I took as a good omen.

The bartender looked at us askance before filling the order of the lithe barmaid who had skillfully wound her way through the crowd, round tray in one hand above her head. As my friend started speaking to him in German, he flatly replied, “Not here.”

“Oh,” she said, a little deflated, but the smile returned seemingly for him alone. His skin loosened near the eyes, his shoulders dropped, the arms unfolded, hands coming to rest on the polished wood of the bar top. Test cleared. Danger averted. The mood of the rest of room relaxed as well though most had their backs to us.

“What’ll ye have then, a Guinness?” he asked.

I shuddered and expressed my first thought about the dark stout. The frown returned.

“No, but I will have a Killian’s,” I replied. All was good in the world again.

“Halloooo,” cried a feminine voice my friend recognized. And making her way through the crowd from a backroom was the German woman we were here to meet. Her boyfriend was one of the players of the band, The Toetapper, live tonight, and thankfully she’d secured us seats at a high table near the stage. Already into their drink were two men, both German, one a dapper business man still in a suit though the tie was loosened considerably, and a bearded fellow sporting a Christmas cap whose fuzzy tip was centered between his eyes.

We’d arrived just in time, apparently. The boys were just about to play their first set and had taken their places. With a throb and thrum of strings their music and voices rose. By the time our beer arrived, I was in heaven. Native American that I am, with half the years of my life spend back and forth between the USA and Germany, through it all I’d had an old and deep love of ballads, especially of the Gaelic variety.

Many a Saturday evening I’d spent listening to the radio broadcast The Thistle and Shamrock and Fiona Ritchie’s soothing lilt. Though I don’t know her personally, I had always been pleased she actually replied to the occasional letter I sent with requests, and once when I visited Charlotte, North Carolina where the program was based, I had the great fortune to be able to meet her.

So from my adolescent past-times, I’d learned quite a range of traditional Irish, Scottish and Welsh performers, songs and styles. I’d enjoyed the unique voices of the people of Brittany and even some of the old songs of England. So despite what someone might judge of my appearance and probable interests, I was completely at home.

We were very merry indeed after a few more rounds of brew, and soon the inevitable occurred for me and I went searching for the “accommodation.” This can always be an adventure in venues like these, but especially in locations where rooms have been adapted for a club or pub, they are generally tight.

In this case, what must have once been a store of some type (front room where the stage was), was connected by a short hall to a few rooms likely which were the living spaces of the previous owner and his family, no doubt decades ago. Now they were hangout spots, one of which had a pool table and another mandatory dart boards surrounded by boisterous groups of a younger crowd.

At least these people parted, giving you an eyeful of who the hell are you? though no one said anything. Though not unfriendly in the slightest, it was quite different from some of the basement lounges I’d been to, where the area was so packed it was like swimming, and you might very well be subjected to random embraces and scandalous “feel-ups” from someone you neither knew nor saw, but everyone was having a damned good time.

I finally returned after my particular adventure, but not before a time of exploration. Yes, I am one of those people who usually check out both bathrooms if they are sex-differentiated, and any nook or cranny I can, just to have a special perspective; one of those who likes to find dark, little out-of-the-way places and gain a view I might never have experienced otherwise. Also, in places like these, I like to try to find the acoustic black hole where all the sounds are sucked, and you can exist in a near absence of noise. In the older buildings which have been renovated, and modified and refitted, there are usually “secret passages” or doors most people miss. I like those places.

Back at the table they were onto rounds of vodka, and I handily downed a couple as the lady’s boyfriend in the group came over for a quick squeeze. She introduced us and gave a little background and he asked me if I had ever heard Irish music. I smiled and probably laughed, which I usually don’t do, but the liquor was kicking in with a vengeance. I knew a little, I replied.

He asked for requests. “Slieve Galen Braes” was my first choice, “Paddy’s Lamentation” was the second, a few more of which I knew the lyrics and melodies by heart. His eyebrows rose and he clapped me on the back. “Next set’s for you!”

“Here’s for the Irish Indian from Alabama!” he announced to the crowd after he stepped back inside the cage. He didn’t have to point me out, everyone looked my way.

More ballads they played, including a lovely Caoineadh sung by a beautiful young woman who brought a tear to many an eye, before they moved onto a series of lively jigs and drinking songs in which I joined.

The chap in the Christmas cap had never spoken or taken his eyes from his mug but bobbed his head back and forth, moving the fuzzy tip. I had to stop looking because after a half dozen shots and three Killian’s it was beginning to make me swim in a different way.

Far slighter of stature and not used to the harder stuff, my friend had reached that point I’d observed on occasion with her: she was agreeable to everything without question, so it was time for us to be going. I didn’t intend to find another smiling naked man coming out of our shared flat bathroom holding out his hand for me to shake by way of introduction. That’s rarely a welcome sight, believe me. It’s even dodgier when they want to have a conversation with you as well while occasionally scratching their bum.

So we paid our lengthy tab and to my surprise received a cheery round of fare-thee-wells, handshakes and shoulder slaps as we shivered back into the sub-zero weather. The street looked different and my friend was giggling. I had neglected to notice where we’d parked the car and she couldn’t remember, which seemed the most hilarious thing she’d ever done, for she leaned over clutching her sides, red-faced with laughter.

“That’s just great,” I said. But she said it’d be no problem.

Tripping across the street to a small bar which was still open, she asked a guy inside for a ride home, giving him our full story. The older man, perhaps late sixties with prodigious girth who looked like he was nine months along and ready to deliver, took his cigarette out of his mouth in surprise. He looked at her long moments as she smiled beatifically. Barking out a chuckle all of a sudden, shaking his head, Warum nicht? he pronounced, shoving off his stool.

Yes, thank you for the ride, runs through my mind as I am relieved we won’t have to walk, but then, with a certain horror, No, no, no, no, no please lady not that!

I shouldn’t have worried. After we folded into his little sub-compact, my friend keeping up a running spiel all the while, it wasn’t very long until we were before the great door to our building.

He gallantly climbed out and opened the car door for us, requesting a kiss and hug from my friend and at least a hug from me. There was great, good humor in his eyes, a certain boyish pleasure at being of service. My embrace was fervent and sincere. I gave him a kiss as an afterthought. His smile was of a young man. The perfect ending to the night.

Red Haircrow: A writer and traveler in a constant dream

Memories 2003/2004, Berlin, Germany:

Watery golden sunlight, the staccato clack of Herr Zug awakens me, struggling up through vivid dreams already late with the rising of the sun, I pull on clothes willy-nilly. Racing down the corridor, through the station, barely making the train I need, I catch my breath only to have it taken again: a handsome young student quietly defiant in military black and a ponytail, an arm’s length away warms me with the intensity of his gaze. I imagine our hearts begin to beat in time, that he must see even the hole in the toe of my left sock so long he looks at me.

“You see something you like,” I ask finally, laughing in mild exasperation and pleasure after several interesting minutes’ ride of mutual review.

“Yes,” he replies simply with a small smile, his eyes never leaving mine. And even I, I the one surprised by nothing, blush beneath his glance, surprised. Returning his books to his rucksack, refastening his ponytail all the while watching me, he stands and I am presented with the profile of yet another fit muscular German derriere clad in black fatigues.

Standing at the door, he looks back to me. “Want to go for a coffee?”

Thrilled yet trying to remain cool, “Sure,” I say. We step off together.

After a conversation that begins somewhat stilted, we conclude laughing. We make plans to meet later that night.

What a wonderful beginning to a day!

Glittery sun, sudden gloom, a spattering of rain, then sleet: a pattern repeated a dozen times during the day. Standing in a breezeway waiting for the worst of it to pass, I lean against cold graffitied concrete listening to the shrill laughing voices of children happily crunching the beads like glass underfoot. A Sigmund Freud look-alike shares my haven for a moment blinking up at the sky through round spectacles. Lost in Kreuzburg, looking for work, it’s taken all of my day yet nothing to show for it. I’ll find my way home soon; tomorrow I am confident Berlin will bow before me.

Evening rush, hurrying through the tunnels for no particular reason except the crowd presses close behind me driving me onward, I fight against them a moment, and they part like water around a river stone as I toss an euro at the guitar player whose music fills the air, his voice lifted in Russian song. That’s how I know I’ve reached the right station. He’s there every day without fail at Nollendorfplatz. The doors close with the computerized voice calmly announcing in German, “Caution, doors closing!” I sink down on molded plastic and sigh at the aching in my feet. Most of the day has been wasted for me, but I have enough money for a few beers tonight. I sit rocking next to an Asian woman delicately biting at a small sandwich barely seen above the wrapper. My mouth waters but I tell myself I am not hungry. I still have some beef jerky left at the room anyway.

The door is opened to my knock; it’s someone I don’t know who recently moved into the eight steel bunk bed room, but that doesn’t matter. Almost everyone has the same dream that’s come to this special room at Meininger 12 hostel: room 007, dubbed “the room of dreams to be.” Dreams of success in their field, of making the grade, of finding a job. Each and every one of my friends are dear to me now: Nikko, the jolly giant from Münster come to make pastries; Isabella, an awesome young opera singer come auditioning; Rachel, a petite Australian beauty who wandered in from Amsterdam; and Robin, my first and dearest, a young Swiss student with a love of jazz.

We all sit around the lone scarred table counting out our last monies; most of us are near the end of our stay, reluctant to go home, to leave each other, to give up on our dreams for this trip, but we still smile and make the best of it. We bring together what foods we have left and share until each is filled. I contribute my beef jerky, a great new favorite of Robin’s. He offers fresh bread and we all exclaim in delight. Some granola bars from Rachel, beer from Nikko, and dried fruit from Isabella. A great feast.

A new friend awakes on the bottom bunk of Rachel’s roost, groggy and jet-lagged, groaning at the light. His accent is Australian, a great surprise and pleasure for Rachel; they are even from the same city, Melbourne. He is as friendly as the day is long and immediately pulled into our group. Robin and I vow to show him the wonders of Berlin and help him get acclimated. He’s in Europe for the first time, a journeyman engineer come to work at Siemens.

“Now, we go?” Kunal asks, but we only laugh. It’s around eighteen hundred hours, far too early to go out. Go back to sleep, we advise him, it’s what we are going to do. Last night’s wandering around Wedding with a return at four a.m. begged for necessary napping.

Not long after midnight I am shaken awake by a smiling face, Robin, in faulty endearing English whispering so as not to awake the others who’ve chosen to pass on this night’s adventure, “Come, come to meet friends!” Prodded, pressed, and persuaded, shaken, stirred and baited I stumble into my best, snatch up Kunal, and out the door we go.

Walking down a dimly lit side street, parameter tape still flutters in the night breeze, marking the steps of the synagogue, its sole guardian identified only by the red ember of his cigarette burning in the shadows. Not until the door opens at the next corner do I know we’ve reached the place.

Wading through bodies thrashing to the heavy beat, sliding onto shabbily chic sofas where slim hot bodies make room in a casual way, one can’t hear a thing above the chest-smashing pulse of the music, but a soft kiss of welcome eases the tension from the persons closest and the first beer blurs the lines. I lean back in muzzy delight. It’s Robin’s favorite place, Cafe Cinema, its dark walls covered with photos of famous stars, its high ceiling swimming in haze.

“What’s your thing?” a smiling guy whom I’ve never seen before, sporting a red spiked Mohawk, yells in my ear leaning across from a wobbly chair. I can barely hear him. He can barely keep his eyes open.

“Poetry,” I shout back at him, “just poetry!” I push him back into his chair;  he’s almost fallen into my lap.

“Cool,” he mouths as he falls asleep sitting upright, “cool, cool, cool . . . .”

“He works at the embassy,” my friend tells me, lighting another cig. “He’s their head chef!” We laugh uproariously.

After a half-dozen rounds of dark German beer, which he generously provided in good Aussie style though we tried to decline or at least return the favor, Kunal expostulates loud enough to turn heads, “Oh my God! It’s supposed to be spring!” Across the tall front windows a sudden fierce snowfall blows sideways; in its grasp dim figures with heads ducked struggle to and fro, one group cavorting in protest as a night bus pulls away. Better head in for the night, we decide, for the Aussie *Auslander* has work in the morning unlike my Robin and I. Lucky devil he, we both have to come back and try again for a place in Berlin after returning home to work and get more blunt.

Wading out into the swirling squall, Kunal still exclaims in amazement beneath it, his breath shaking his dark curls in wonder. The rhythm still in his head, the beer curling warm in his belly, Robin dances in the station, his face angelic as we beg him to stop for he’s too close to the edge of the tracks. He pirouettes away with glee, lifting his Frank Sinatra-style hat politely to an elderly couple, stalwart in wool and tweeds standing stolidly shoulder to shoulder waiting, as are we, for the next train.

Red Haircrow: A writer and traveler in a constant dream