bloody mary anyone?

Last night I worked behind a bar for the first time in my life. It was obvious that I had no idea what I was doing... but I was working with a nice German woman and a nice Danish man. They were very friendly and patient. Hopefully I can get a few shifts there to make some pocket money, but given that the boss was sitting at the bar watching all night, I'm not incredibly hopeful. While they only have bottled beer (phew), most of the clientele prefer cocktails, and it's the kind of place where people end up when the bars they were in earlier have closed or become boring. Luckily for me, they were therefore so drunk that they weren't too fussy about whatever was in the glass I was handing to them. Ahem.

It's funny that I've actually made it to this age without having worked a bar before. But in the world of underpaid jobs, I have always been on the other side of the great border that divides hospitality and retail workers. My first job as a teenager was in a department store. For 6 years I learned how to run a check out, put things in bags, cut my hands on packing tape dispensers, and smile when customers threw objects in my face when they couldn't buy that incredibly shoddy excuse for a child's toy at christmas time. I didn't learn how to pull beers and serve drinks with sticky hands, sweep up broken bottles between the legs of sleazy drunk people, cut my hands on broken cocktail glasses and inhale secondary smoke. So I was actually pretty nervous about the whole thing. But it went off mostly without a hitch. And I figure it's high time I learned anyway.

Unfortunately, getting home at 6am this morning meant that I slept through my 7.30 alarm and was late to work at my other job as a receptionist in a call centre. Oopsy.

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Sneak Preview

I have also pasted directly below here a contents list for two upcoming posts that I am constructing with photos. There are heaps, so it's taking a while. But you can get a sneak preview here:

drafted in February... Berlin Bumper Edition #2
1. Lesbian Koalas and other German news items
2. Hysterical Brisbane pair land in Berlin
3. Quotidian Cultural Experiences #1: Opera
4. My first demo - yeah yeah, it took a while
5. Miss Gulag, Gay-bashers in Moscow, and other berlinale highlights
6. camp counselor kate, or, How I learned to stop hoping and love the unemployment situation in Berlin, or, How working for a Siemens-commissioned call centre destroyed my soul
7. ALB: Antifaschistische Linke Berlin (my new temporary political family)
8. ....

drafted in August/September/October... Berlin Bumper Edition #3
1. London, New York, Paris: springtime! (plus Boston & Toronto!)
2. Skip Bloc and the G8
- lead-up
- the camp
- the blockade
- reflections
3. Alice moves in!
4. Queer historians meet for tea in Swansea, Wales
5. The only gay in the village? Driving through Wales with my sister and Dan
6. Summer camps & missing Berlin
7. The sad end of summer
8. Bathing in Budapest and Conferencing in Cracow
9. Swiss Alps, kids and cows
10. My mother's birthday
11. The Davison Elterns hit Berlin
12. The daily grind - I wish

Yet to be drafted...
1. My new house (it's great to live with a Heilpraktikerin!)
2. Christmas in Bavaria
3. Photos of the Stasi Prison at Hohenschonhausen and other tourist adventures
4. friends come, friends go - goodbye Alice & Claire
5. other things that I can't remember right now...