Berl-In the Raw

Nearly two weeks into my life in Berlin and most of my time has been filled with moving, unpacking, going to IKEA and Bauhaus (the German Bunnings) and putting stuff together in the house or bolting it to the walls. Hence Paula decided that is might be a nice change to just take it easy one evening and go to a “Therme”. It’s like a health spa, where you pay to get in but can then use any of the spas, saunas and pools in the complex on top of the building in central Berlin. It wasn’t too far away from Paula’s work so she had done all the research and wanted to go. I was happy to come along as I could do with a spa and felt like swimming a few laps.
It was cheaper after 8pm, so we waited til then, paid our 14euro to get in and got changed in our separate change rooms and I then walked up to meet Paula in the main pool area. I noticed straight away that this is not a pool for swimming laps, as it was more in a Roman bath kind of style, but it still looked very cool with the heated pool extending under the glass wall to the area on the rooftop outside. I waited by the pool, wearing my boardshorts and holding my small towel.
While waiting for Paula, I saw a couple of dudes walk up to the water, remove their towels, revealing them to be completely naked, and then get into the water. I figured, no problems. I’m in Europe. I’m used to seeing people naked and if that’s how they want to swim, then good on them. I then saw Paula and walked up to meet her. I walked into the shower area and saw that she was going topless. Again, no big deal. It was then that I was hit with the news. This Therme, unlike the ones Paula is used to in Hamburg, is Nude Only. I was gonna have to get my junk out.
I’m more than happy to walk around at home in the nude, even if the windows are all open and people can easily see in. I’ve also regularly got nude in public when drunk, but this was going to be the first time I’d done it stone cold sober. I stood there in the shower area with Paula and had a brief conniption regarding having to drop trou and get the boys out for all to see. After deciding that there really wasn’t a decision to be made and that it shouldn’t be a big deal, I removed my swimmers while Paula took off her bikini bottoms and we briskly walked to the nearest pool and got in.
I sat there for a while, feeling very self conscious and reminding Paula that not only was I brought up in Australia, where unlike Germany, public nakedness while sober is not commonplace, but I was also brought up Mormon, where any nakedness in front of anyone except your Wife would be frowned upon. It was all very foreign to me, but all that kept running through my head was “Welcome to Germany”.
It made matters slightly worse that I had brought such a small towel which wouldn’t wrap around my waist, so while others walked between pools and saunas they would be covered in either a large towel or a dressing gown, I was using my gym towel which did not quite make it around my waist, so I would be showing at least my ass or a leg to the world while walking about. I also didn’t have any sort of footwear, so was slumming around in bare feet while everyone else had slippers. I couldn’t have looked any more out of place if I tried.
But, after a while it all just becomes the norm and I started to enjoy the experience and the novelty of it all. I swam outside, under the full moon completely nude in a heated pool on a rooftop in the middle of Berlin. I had a shower in full view of the surrounding apartments, and I ran, nude from the steam room, to the cold pool, and then to the hot pool. All lots of fun and before long I didn’t give the fact that my penis was out in the wind a second though.
Paula and I had been into plenty of saunas over the night but she wanted to go into one that had the scented water put on the steamer. This one would be over 90’C and full of people, as most of the punters would have a similar idea to hers. I obliged, now fully enjoying the fact that nobody cares and nobody pays attention to anyone else. We sat in the 4mx4m sauna, in definitely the hottest climate I had ever endured with twenty other naked people and all that kept running though my mind was the song from “Flight of the Conchords” – Too many dicks on the dance floor.
After getting out of that sauna after 6 minutes of feeling like my skin and eyeballs were about to spontaneously combust, I jumped in the cold pool for a bit and actually started to feel light headed. I don’t think my heart took too kindly to all these massive changes in temperature. By the time it got to 11pm we were ready to end our nude adventure as we headed for the showers and made our way to our separate change rooms.
Upon leaving the Therme we made our way back to Neukolln and went out looking for food. As we got back there well after midnight the only things that were open were the late night kiosks, and it was out front of one of these kiosks that the night had its appropriately weird finale. Paula had just opened to door to the kiosk and I was standing on the pavement in front of it, when a dude riding along the pavement on his bike must’ve grabbed far too much front brake and sent himself sailing over the handlebars, not 4m away from where I was standing. There was nothing in front of him, and nothing to avoid, so I have no idea why he applied the brakes at all. He got up and swore at himself and said he was okay when I asked him how he was. I assume he was drunk but we’ll never know. I then bought myself some bread and went home and made myself some pasta.
Welcome to Berlin.