Is your sanity hanging by a thin thread or are you performing better than ever during the Corona lockdown? Find out what quarantine type you are with our personality quiz below with the witty illustrations by Sophia Halamoda.
3 Fun DIY Games to Play with Friends & Family
The holidays are the time of the year when time moves really really slowly. It’s lovely to spend some days with your friends and family if you can. Maybe you are even back in your hometown. But you basically spend your days eating, watching telly and waiting for the next meal (unless you are the unlucky one who prepares all the meals, then you are stuck in the kitchen for days).
To avoid falling into a hole of boredom I feel like playing games this year. Any game will do – no matter if it’s a complicated board game, a simple game of cards, scrabble or just a huge puzzle. I’m actually really into Monopoly, but I will also be ok with UNO. Anything so we can avoid watching the Helene Fischer show on ARD…
But what if you don’t have any of those games at home? Well, we have a solution for that! We thought up a few games for you that you can simply print out at home on a regular A4 sheet. Now let the games begin…
Support Small Businesses With Your Gift Shopping this Holiday Season
illustration: Berk Karaoglu.
With this cursed year coming to a close, Berlin descends into one of the most magical times of the year: the holidays. Normally complete with Glühwein, freezing cold, and Christmas markets, this winter is going to feel far from normal (except the freezing cold). Although the holidays may be a bit different this year, it’s still the season to give back to the people you love and the city we all love. We’ve compiled this gifting guide featuring small businesses from Berlin if you’re looking for an alternative to Amazon. All the businesses listed in the following guides are small, ethical, locally owned, and sure to make your loved ones (and their owners) smile.
Play the Game: What Dating Type Are You?
When it comes to dating in Berlin, things are not quite as black and white as you imagine. There are all these different new ways of life and love we have come to accept here and it only proves the liberal spirit of the city we love so much,
But where are you on the spectrum of love? For our book Like A Berliner (which by the way makes for an excellent Christmas present – order it here!) we sat together with illustrator Sophia Halamoda and came up with a smart little game of questions and answers that will solve the riddle and define what dating type you are.
How to Get the Berlin Look
While Berlin’s weather is too unpredictable to count on it, at least you don’t have to worry about always having to find the appropriate outfit for the current circumstances. Berliners tend to be quite liberal as far as putting together a look goes. Or taking a look apart, for that matter: showing some skin is often a viable option. At the first glance, it might look like they’re just throwing on random stuff they just picked up at Humana, but there’s a logic to this aesthetic madness.
Together with the illustrator Sophia Halamoda, we’ve analyzed some of the most prevailing Hauptstadt fashion trends for our book Like A Berliner (available here) and extracted some advice for you on how to get the Berlin look from the chapter Look Like A Berliner!
The Different Stages of the Berlin Club Queues
Berlin’s nightlife and club culture have been a driving force for many young people coming to Berlin hungry for new experiences. There is so much history and intrigue about it, it’s like it has developed its own myths and stories, some of which we captured in the chapter “Party Like A Berliner” in our new book Like A Berliner that we published in collaboration with illustrator Sophia Halamoda. One of the comics from this chapter is dedicated to the different stages that you live through while waiting in the club queue. Of course, if you wait in front of a club for several hours you have way too much time to think, so some very interesting emotional states will kick in ranging from anticipation, joy, doubt, struggle, panic and of course dread when you realize you might get bounced and waited for nothing. We deciphered these stages for you and want to show you 10 of them.
The Club Queue comic is also available as a poster (70x50cm) at Hallesches Haus and Urban Spree, as well as in our webshop.
6 Awesome Calendars from Berlin for 2020
Getting yourself an actual, material calendar is surely a bold move in times of ubiquitous digitalization. Going analog can bring structure to your hectic life without any of the screen addiction that productivity apps can cause. Buying an actual calendar is also an important gesture of showing support and appreciation to the artist behind it. And obviously, it’s an appropriate gift for almost anyone – and especially useful in Berlin, the city where people need the occasional reminder of conventional concepts of time.
The Coolest Alternative Christmas Markets & Sales in Berlin
Heissa Holzmarkt.
Although Berliners are known to hate the wintertime, December brings one special treat that somehow alleviates the pain. Even those hardened freelancers who don’t need to show up for work and seriously consider hibernating with takeout as a viable survival solution are likely to leave the comfort of their home office when they hear two magic words: Christmas markets. And seriously, what’s not to love? Berlin’s Christmas markets reflect the spirit of the town itself and many of them have little to do with the cheesy vibe of dumb consumerism. On the contrary – they present a chance to discover and support local creators, get to know locations that remain relevant all year round, and last but not least, have a glass of the classic Glühwein. Read on to discover the coolest Christmas markets and special sales going on this year!
A Review of the Like A Berliner Book Launch Party
This was fun! On Friday we launched our new book Like A Berliner that we’ve been working on for the past 3 years with illustrator Sophia Halamoda and that is available to order now in our new online shop. We had the incredible honor of doing our party at Kantini in collaboration with Bikini Berlin. It was such a match made in heaven – the wonderful design of the place mixed with the cute illustrations of Sophia that we pasted all over the place.
To make the evening extra special we invited a couple of really unique performers to embody the spirit of our book and take our guests by the hand to make some memorable experiences. From Jennifer Aniston tarot readings by Esben Holk, to anti-confessions with Olympia Bukkakis, tactile sensations with crochet artist Anto Christ, fetish research with drag queen Purrja, and unsolicited plant advice by Miss Poppy Cox – there was something for everyone – and it was great fun. As a special treat, we invited The Darvish to give us a little belly dance, and boy did he deliver!
The Story of the Berlin Wall Explained in One Big Comic
illustrations: Sophia Halamoda.
The history of the German division and the Berlin Wall is – to put it mildly – a rather complicated one. Especially since even today, 30 years later, it still feels the country has not completely recovered from it. I was only 7 when the wall came down so I feel my memory of life in the East is pretty much seen through the eyes of a child. I don’t remember life for my family being bad in any way, we were quite happy actually. There were a lot of things we didn’t have – but also we didn’t know about them, so we didn’t miss them.
But once the two German countries re-united, it did feel like something exciting and good was happening – at first. It took us all a while to understand what was really going on. On the surface, we were re-uniting but underneath it was more of a take-over. I don’t mean it in a hostile way, and I’m not blaming either side for what had happened. It is, as I said before, more complicated than that. But in the few decades, those two parts of Germany developed so differently under such different circumstances, that throwing them together again like that was just going to cause some collateral damage. If you only look at the election results or statistics such as unemployment rates you will see a country that is maybe not as united as it should be.