Mauer Park flea market

Acting on a tip from Rory, who's studying in Berlin, my mom and I went to the Mauer Park flea market on Sunday, our last day in the city.

I've been pretty proud of my pack job. Many of my fellow travellers have had bigger backpacks than mine, which has been a small source of pride. Whenever my teammate Ryan and I would travel or go home for break, we would compete to see who could pack lighter. I think I picked Ryan up from the airport last spring break and he had checked a bag, which a true light packer would never do. he hd some excuse, but it wasn't good enough to remember.

The last few days in Berlin were pretty gray and wet, however, and I began to rue my last minute decision to ditch my extra sweater on the way to the airport back in Burlington. With a week in Scandinavia on the horizon, I knew I needed another layer. The Vikings levy pretty serious taxes for their welfare state, so an impulse buy sweater would cost a pretty penny.

After scouring the grounds Mauer Park for a couple hours I was about to buy a screen printed sweatshirt from a Berlin local designer when I saw a huge Pelle Pelle sweater in one of the second hand alleys. I'm a sucker for random stuff like that-a second hand Pelle Pelle sweater in Berlin?-so I had to have it. At a price of four euros I couldn't even haggle. Also, if I decide I hate it, maybe I can probably sell it for 100 krona in Stockholm since everything's so expensive there. But by all accounts, the Swedish are very stylish, so who knows.

Pelle Pelle

I also snagged a watch and a shirt for my bro's birthday. Happy birthday Tom!

Content with my haul, we headed out the side of the market and noticed a crowd gathering around an outdoor stage. We followed and discovered Bearpit Karaoke, which was definitely an experience and a more uplifting way to end our trip than all the Holocaust and Berlin Wall history we had been absorbing.

Emceed by a funny Irish guy, the karaoke wasn't great, but it was entertaining and a very unique scene. There may have been 3,000 people in the crowd and another 500 within earshot playing awful basketball, juggling or just hanging in the park. I was expecting some impressive singers because I couldn't imagine going up in front of that audience unless I knew I was good. Or at least knew the words. I learned that other people are much more willing to fail or look like a fool in the name of good fun.

Some of the crowd for karaoke

The crowd favorite was probably an older German guy named Detlef (shouts to my Seattle crew) who sang a rousing German version of Praise the Lord. And gave a remarkable amount of bows afterwards. There were some flops, each met with the proper amount of sharp criticism from the host. Aside from Detlef, there were singers from Boston, Belarus, "Gay" Paris (his own emphasis) and a random guy in a king costume who seemed to have gotten lost on the drama club annual outing.

I had a lot of fun and have a lot of respect for them all going up in front of a large audience to do something they're not very good at. Kinda like Alex Rodriguez!