It's a very special time of year - the anniversary of when I went to Berlin last year. I didn't put up a blog post about it then because my blog was broken. But now my blog is fixed, and my tales of Berlin shall be immortalised in text. The issue with building your own website is there's no one to complain to when your host suddenly drops your whole database. But that's probably not as interesting as a German techno sex spa, so let's talk about Berlin instead.

Tired of the limited amount of weird activities Edinburgh has to offer, my oft-mentioned friend Sam and I booked a 3 night trip to Berlin. I would have once said our level of planning was Germanic, but now I've been to Berlin I have absolutely no idea where the Germans get that reputation.

It was imperative that we experienced the maximum number of weird things possible in 3 days so of course, a spreadsheet was created. Google maps routes were calculated. Tickets were pre-purchased. Drying our hair after a techno spa was accounted for. We allowed very small amounts of leeway in case of the unexpected, but in general we opted for the approach of “the only sitting down we'll do is on a tram on our way to somewhere”. Not everybody's ideal holiday, but it certainly was ours.

We arrived on a Thursday evening and after dropping our stuff at my aunt's beautiful flat that she so kindly let us use, we hoofed it to the techno spa. We didn't know what a techno spa was. I'd never been to a spa before. It wasn't what I thought a spa would be. It looked like a nightclub. There was a bar, loungers, a hot tub, a sauna, a steam room and a warm salt water pool. A DJ blasted techno throughout, which became surprisingly soothing after a while. Also, clothing was optional and people were riding left right and centre. The salt water pool contained two large floating flamingos, so we glided around on those, thoroughly ruining the amorous buzz of the couples.

Now, I grew up in Catholic Ireland. I'd like to say I'm very worldly and things don't shock me. But while I'm all for a techno sex spa, I did spend my first half hour feeling absolutely shook. It's surprising how quickly you adjust to nudity and shagging when it's all around you though. Fortunately for me, because this was only a mild intro to Berlin.

On Friday, we first went to the David Hasselhoff Museum. Sam wanted to axe this from our itinerary but she's damn glad I fought for it now. It's one corridor in the basement of a hostel displaying a few life jackets and pictures of David Hasselhoff. It is wonderful and if you ever visit Berlin and find yourself torn between this or Checkpoint Charlie, the choice is obvious.

Next was the Magicum. Partly chosen for the hilarious name, partly chosen because it was an interactive magic experience. The worksheets seemed to be aimed at children, but there weren't many children there and it had a significant section dedicated to torture. I never really know with Berlin to be honest. We did our tarot. We rubbed a metal bowl suggestively to make water move. We watched a magic show that suspiciously had tissues on every table. 10/10. No notes. Visit the Magicum.

We didn't see much of the Berlin Wall. There was simply no time with all the David Hasselhoffing and Magicumming, But don't worry. We did see the Berlin Mall. And it had a huge slide. Enormous fun. It also had this incredibly lame thing I insisted on booking that's sort of like a photoshoot set for influencers. You go in and there's all these setups, like a room of disco balls, or a prisoner shot, or a ball pit. You can take photos for your Instagram, I guess? There was a group of 20 year old girls in there with a ring light. Which was kind of absurd, because one thing I'll say for the place was that it had good lighting. Anyway, shite though it was, the girl working there told us that the public toilets where they charge you are a scam. You don't have to pay. It's good intel, but of course we're far too polite to try to enforce it.

We weren't able to prebook Monster Kabinett. The website wasn't even entirely clear on what it was. But that just made it more intriguing. So we went to its location - an incredible fully graffitied side street full of weird art galleries (my favourite was Many Tentacles) and bars - to ask. An eccentric costumed man said he'd run the show 'soon' (very un-German) and we could just have a drink while we waited. The reason the website isn't clear is because it's very hard to describe. They'd made these incredible massive mechanical monsters, and they bring you to show you them and then they sort of… 'break free' and chase you, and play saxophone. Fantastic stuff.

On Saturday, we'd booked Dark Matter. It was our first venture to proper East Berlin, which is achingly cool with all its warehouses and industrial architecture. Dark Matter was a light art exhibition. Not light-hearted, you understand - it was all light installations synced up to sound in otherwise pitch-black rooms. Very immersive, particularly the bonfire made from orangey light shards. But the most important thing about this place was that on the way, we passed a circus tent with techno blasting out the gate. We went in, of course, and joined a queue behind one other couple. They got turned away because he was wearing an army shirt. We got to the top of the queue, having absolutely no idea what we were queuing for, and a guy with a very long beard and a face tattoo looked at us and said 'Yes. I like your casual festival vibe.' And let us in. To be clear, we were both wearing glasses, practical jackets, comfortable footwear and Sam had a pink backpack. We basically looked like two Dora the Explorers. I'm certain his logic was that no one would be this uncool unless they were making a statement. Anyway, we spent the next two hours hanging out in an incredible adult Disneyland. No pictures allowed, sadly, but it's a day/night club in an old factory. The outside area is all bridges, boats, walkways, structures and huts, and looks like the set of Hook (terrible film, don't rewatch and ruin your nostalgia). The inside has bars and dancefloors. We met a group of people who said they'd been there since Wednesday. They offered us some drugs but we explained we still had a lot of activities to get through so thank you but no.

We tried to do some culture by going to see Checkpoint Charlie. It was fine. Better though, was Charlie's Beach. Beside Checkpoint Charlie, it's a little sandy area with deckchairs, bars and tat shops.

We had a serious Berghain dilemma. Berghain is a famous nightclub. A sort of anything goes nightclub. We were desperate to see inside. But everyone we talked to said you'll queue for two hours and have about a 10% chance of getting in. We were advised to try a different anything goes club, with slightly better odds. We read up on the dress code for Saturday night, and it said fetish and goth, so we assumed goth would be acceptable. We studied up on the DJs, having been warned they might quiz us on who we want to see. We arrived at 10pm and queued for 2 full hours. As we watched people get turned away with literally no logic or common theme, we made our peace with the fact that we were going to go home and watch Your Place or Mine - distinctly average Netflix romcom starring Reese Witherspoon. But somehow the bouncer let us in. Perhaps due to our casual festival vibe again. And I was not prepared.

I'd heard about these clubs. I thought I knew what to expect. I did not. When we got in the door and were faced with a heaving mass of bondage-clad or entirely naked people, Sam had to tell me to get it together or we'd be asked to leave. I wanted to be asked to leave. I'm IRISH. I thought the techno spa was stressful enough, but that was the Antiques Roadshow compared to this. We were both wearing black corsetty style dresses that we've now both binned because they make us feel like dowdy Amish women. The club is a complicated mess of corridors, dancefloors, a soft jazz area, a swimming pool and eh… activity rooms. We walked into one of these activity rooms and I'll never unsee what I saw. Anyway, we were offered more drugs but explained no thank you, we have many activities to do tomorrow before our flight home. I have never felt more out of my depth in my entire life. Holy good god.

We got home at 6am (this was not entirely due to excessive partying, and much to do with the fact that the club was very far away and we gave the taxi the wrong address), and got up again at 8am to go to an abandoned theme park called Spreepark. It's a trek to get there, and I wasn't able to book an English tour. So I booked a German one and hoped for the best. Parts of it are worth seeing, but it's mostly behind fences and you don't get to climb around the old rollercoasters or anything. The tour was also very dull, but I'll allow that neither of us speak German so that might have had something to do with it.

Oh yeah and we saw the Brandenburg Gate.