A couple weeks ago I took a weekend trip to Berlin to visit my old friends and enjoy the city I fell so deeply in love with just over two years ago.

Friday night I went to a cabaret/burlesque show called Berliner Luft: It’s in the Air! Since photography was not allowed at the venue, and I’m morally opposed to stealing photos that don’t belong to you, I will direct you instead to the event website, the venue website, and the event’s Facebook page so you can see for yourself. I sat next to a lovely tourist couple, a woman from Australia and a man from Japan, and had a nice chat about where we’d been and what we thought of the city. I’m not sure why but I was really keen on going to Kaffee Burger that night, so I talked them in to coming to Rosa Luxemburg Platz with me, where we ate the famous Döner place nearby, the name of which I’ve once again forgotten. We wound up going to a club right next to Kaffee Burger instead because the music sounded better, though it turned out to be an eclectic mix of electro, pop, jazz and hip hop. We were all quite tired, so we called it an early night at 2am.

The rest of the time was mostly spent running around, doing cheap shopping, helping out some incredibly daft tourists (“What? You mean I’m supposed to have a ticket to ride the train?” and “Oh, I can leave my backpack at a hotel luggage room instead of carrying it around all day?”) and visiting friends. On a frigid Sunday evening, I decided to walk around the city at night, one of my favorite pastimes because I love the lights and the energy on the streets. I borrowed a friend’s Nikon with its 18-55mm kit lens and took a bunch of night photos. It was freezing, but it was fun.