Little Things I Love (Miss) About Berlin...

...the living room bars. A friend who I lived with for a second in Berlin, who also lives in New York again, is coming over tonight and I've been trying to figure out of what we should do. This got me thinking about Berlin again and something I particularly miss about my old home. Both NYC and Berlin have more bars than one city could possibly need, but the atmosphere inside of these establishments couldn't be more different. American bars have, well, a bar, bar stools, and maybe some tables, a TV, and they usually smell like stale beer and other things depending on their level on the dive-y scale. Berlin bars are more like living rooms or old attics where your grandma is storing all her unwanted furniture from her living room. They are full of couches and ashtrays and old lady lamps, and you can sit in them for hours without really feeling like you are wasting away at a bar. And I certainly did a lot of that with my friend, and she doesn't even drink. The cozy hangouts serve coffee, tea and club mate (when is it coming to the States?) and it isn't weird if that is what you want — everyone isn't just there to get drunk and hit on each other. I do miss that. The pic above is from one of my favorites, Luzia, and here are some of the others I hung out in as well.