Got back last Sunday from my four-night trip to the capital of Germany. It was my first time during Easter, but I had heard it would be comparable to the Folsom Europe weekend in September. And it was true; the quantity and quality of parties was almost identical to Folsom, except of course there was no street parade, and the weather was a bit colder.
The nice thing about Berlin is that — unlike many so-called gay friendly cities — it really has a gay district. The adjacents streets of Fuggerstrasse and Motzstrasse form a compound where during a weekend like Easter or Folsom you can walk around in leather or rubber and perfectly blend in. In fact, as I don’t do rubber or leather as casual wear, I felt a bit frustrated walking around the gay district in jeans and with a camera, because obviously I was mistaken for some poor young straight tourist wondered into unknown territory.
I was travelling with two (into kink) friends of mine and we stayed in the city from Wednesday to Sunday. The first night, Wednesday, was a bit quiet on the party front, but from Thursday onwards there was a lot to choose from. On Thursday we went to Mutschmann’s Rubber Night which had suffered an advertising failure and was very quiet; not a problem, since after 11pm it turned into a general fetish event and packed so much to the brim that it had more rubber guys in it than during the Rubber Night!
On Friday we decided to go to Rubber eXXXtreme, and it had suffered a last-minute venue change to Scheune, which is a smallish bar with a recently sized darkroom. The bar area was totally packed and changing into gear proved to be quite a hassle. They had bar tab thing with wristbands, so at least you didn’t have to fumble around with cash. I retreated to the hotel at about 3am, but my friends partied until 7am and went straight to breakfast, but they suffered the consequences of that the next day.
Saturday, final night, was the night of the most underadvertised fetish party I’ve ever seen, the Snax party at Berghain (and Lab-Oratory) combined into one venue. It was huge, and like most huge fetish parties, it was in an old power plant. After an hour of queueing (didn’t have presale tickets) we got in and stepped into the huge hall of dancing kinky guys and electonic music. The Lab-Oratory part of the complex was a huge maze of darkroom areas which proved to be at least as popular hangouts as the dance floor.
If you’ve never been to Berlin during Easter, I highly recommend it. Folsom Europe might be a tad bigger, but the Easter has a definite vibe which I am looking forward to dive into again next year.