A feast for the eyes at the Palast

We've had a pretty eventful couple of days since I last posted. We kicked off the day with a 4-hour bike tour through the city, where we stumbled upon a taxi strike of some sort happening in the Turkish quarter of Berlin. It was cool to see freedom of speech at work here. Their protest chants and signs were incomprehensible to me, but there was a definitely a thick tension in the air that only comes from severe dissatisfaction. After a couple hours of free time we headed out to the Friedrichstag Palast for what I thought was going to be at least a good half hour of sleep on a comfy chair while show girls did the can-can wearing outlandish head pieces comparable to them in weight. Not only was I awake for the entire 3 hours, I don't think I've ever been more mesmerized in my life. "The Qi to life" is definitely a 16,90 euros well-spent. Never have I seen so many art forms combined into a single show. There was music, dancing, roller-blading, ice-skating, trapeze, juggling, magic, lights, comedy, acrobatics, swimming, not to mention a very impassioned dance between two men that had Kevin averting his eyes by the end. Yet it wasn't the edgy tango-fight between the two gay men that won over the audience in the end. The master juggler was by far the star of the show. His talent surpasses any dictionary definition of the verb "to juggle," and his routine was absolutely flawless. Period.

Today I met with my subject in the morning for some coffee. It's a huge relief to finally have something pinned down, and all thanks to a flier I saw while out for a walk with Carolyn a couple days ago. More about that later though!