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Jacinta’s solo Berlin Christmas guide!

RANT! Those alone in Berlin this Christmas, fear not! Jacinta Nandi has some fun ideas on how you can celebrate in your home away from home!

Image for Jacinta's solo Berlin Christmas guide!

Photo by Flux FM. Jacinta Nandi’s solo Christmas guide!

So, I promised my best friend in the world that I would spend Christmas, with her, alone together in her beautiful Kreuzberg apartment, getting trashed on a mixture of Eierlikör, cheap champagne (my socialist mother was so certain Jeremy Corbyn was going to win the election, that she bought champagne on Thursday afternoon, my auntie said to her, “Er, hmmmn, it’s actually not champagne, it’s just Prosecco!” and my mother said the funniest thing anyone has ever said to another person: “Shut the fuck up, Prosecco is a brand of champagne!”) and possibly ketamine.

But I am a bad friend – or possibly a dutiful daughter – and when my mum begged me to come home this year, I threw my friend to the wolves, or the cold Berlin Christmas, and I am now, of course, wracked with more guilt than I was the time I forgot to pack my son’s packed lunch on a Schulausflug and by the time I bought a croissant from the bakery the bus had already gone.

Berlin’s an amazing city, where there’s always something on. Art gallery exhibitions, porn film festivals, porridge pop-ups, poetry performances, stand-up comedy mixed with therapy, Berghain, Berghain, Berghain. But Christmas can be a lonely time of year, especially when all the Germans go home to their surprisingly posh relatives in East or West Germany (let’s face is, for all the Ossi-bashing, even East Germans are often surprisingly posh and have swimming pools) and all the Brits go home to Brexitland. And the Australians, New Zealanders, North and South Americans, plus everyone else too far away to fly home, are left here, miserable, alone, cold and melancholy. BUT NEVER FEAR JACINTA’S SOLO-BERLIN-CHRISTMAS GUIDE IS HERE:

My first tip is head to Schokolade on the 24th for LSD – Liebe Statt Drogen’s Christmas show. I know, I know, in GERMAN (yuck) but as we always say in Exberliner, we are in Germany, speak Deutsch bitte!  This #insidertip is dedicated to the Scrooges out there. Nobody hates Christmas better than a grumpy grouchy German whingeing into a microphone. Come here if you want to experience the spirit of anti-Christmas! Seriously, compared to this lot, Bill Murray in Groundhog Day seems as enthusiastic as Daniella Katzenberger on coke. 

Next, the Michelberger hotel because… Wow! It’s almost as if they read our lonely minds, Michelberger is offering a special Lonely Hearts Christmas special – €40 for dinner and a special rate for lonely Berliners of €50 a night! E-mail them directly with the code LONELYHEARTS. There are even some luxury rooms still available!

Get to a spa! Kristall Therme Ludwigsfelde (watch out, US-Americans, they will make you take your knickers off, the pervs) is closed on Christmas Eve but open on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. You know the deal here: delicious salty water, wonderful saunas, a lovely outside heated pool with a whirly bit, is there anything more relaxing than sitting in a hot swimming pool, completely naked, sipping on a cocktail, surrounded by German granddads? I don’t think so.

Christmas Markets. To be honest, I can’t think of anything I’d like to do less. I hate the bastards. My relatives once came over to experience the Christmas Market in Berlin sensation everyone in Britain goes on and on about, and I persuaded them to go to the Holocaust Memorial instead. But, for example, the Christmas Market at Alexanderplatz will be open on the 25th and the 26th.

And finally, go clubbing! Why not just fuck all that goose shit off and go clubbing? Kitkat and Berghain are both partying on the 25th. 

Happy Christmas!