I didn't buy a camera for nothing, part two.

(left: the sink in the ladies' at Amrit. There are even two of these masterpieces side by side. Sigh.)

Amrit is a super delicious, super beautiful Indian restaurant on Oranienstraße in Kreuzberg. The decor is like something out of a movie and they are always bumping those Indian jams that make me want to do nothing but watch Bollywood films for the rest of my life.

I've only been there during the lunch specials. For €5, you get a huge portion of Korma/Masala/Jalfrezi/etc etc, rice, salad, fried bread and and soup. We're not talking no rich people's courses neither, but actual solid amounts of everything. If finish your plate and walk out of there feeling like anything smaller than a blue whale you need to enter eating contests, STAT.

The service there is hit or miss, though. While the food is always 100%, sometimes you get a waiter who hates life (or rather, just the people he meets in it who don't spend enough money). I thought this was Europe and no one cared about tips, but evidently I was wrong.

Yesterday this dude earned his three strikes pretty quickly. Strike one was when he told us he wasn't "allowed" to bring us tap water. Lie, and a poorly told one too. I have been there a thousand times and have never had any problems; his, on the other hand, was a face I had not seen before. Strike two was when he brought out one salad for four of us. Now when I go to Amrit with one other person I'm always sad because they bring us the same amount of salad that they bring when I'm alone, but try bringing that one salad for four people and you are going to have problems, pal. He was skeptical that we would finish the one, I guess because fat foreigners are only interested in eating cookie dough and french fries. Best be sure he brought us another salad, and we ate all of it. Easily.

Strike three was absolutely the icing on the cake however. Laura has a pretty light appetite most of the time and finished about half of her monster portion at lunch. When she asked for a box the sycophantic asshole fuckface lskajdflkasjdflaksjdfldaskj ffuck i hate this dude, he told her, "I'm very sorry but there's not enough there. That's only two bites. I can't ask the refrigerator to box up two bites." (He kept saying "kuhlschrank"--"refrigerator"--when referring to the "küche"--kitchen. They sound similar but not so much alike that it doesn't make you a moron for getting the two confused.) Laura was about to tolerate that bullshit when I spoke up, "what the fuck difference does it make whether you've got two bites or an entire plate, you're a customer who wants to take home her leftovers." So she decided to tell him that it was actually kind of senseless because she really did have much much more than two bites and if she wants to take it home who is he to tell her how much she is allowed to take home? and offered to pay him 50 cents for the packing. Oh god just when I think about this fucking retarded assmonkey piece of shit I get mad, then he told her that he would have to ask the refrigerator if it were ok, he'd try his best but not make any promises, because it's such a small amount of food, he might get in trouble. FUUUUUUUUUUUCK. I want to go burn that guy's house down, seriously. We were pissed, but he still made €2 in tips from the table. He told Laura to have a nice day and she mumbled "I hope he doesn't have a nice day" and she's never ever like that so you'll have to believe me when I say he was a fucking dick about EVERYTHING. Consensus was that we marked ourselves from the beginning as ghetto trash because we asked for tap water instead of buying overpriced drinks. We noticed that the table next to us was getting excellent service and extra everything; I guess you have to order enormous foo-foo drinks with umbrellas in them at three in the afternoon to be valued as a customer. (p.s. laura's leftovers literally filled the to-go container he brought her.)

Laura sometime before the packaging incident.

Cookie and Graham as Graham is paying and not looking too pleased about it.

My "sexy" cougar

My feral cougar

Lady Bag. Evidently you shoot the lady first, then slip her in the bag and toss her in the basket provided (instead of flushing her down the toily).

This doll store always creeps me out. There was a dolly in there whose startlingly authentic expression of disappointment, longing and resignation was so life-like that I got a little spooked, cos she's staring straight at you, but it didn't translate to digital photography so instead of showing you that one, I decided to show you a doll that looks like a small, female, porcelain version of Daniel Boone. Seriously wtf is up with those shoulders?

Then we went to Murray's Irish Bar for Lucy's going away party. Murray's is crap and as I'm on (or off, whatever) the wagon I had to get stoned and drink Apfelschorle all night.

Laura looks like she's enjoying the super laaaaaaaame open mic performer. Have you ever lived in a hostel, or belonged to a youth group, or been with a group of six or more white people to a beach or park? Then you will know exactly the type of music this guy was playing. "Baby Hit Me One More Time" acoustic is neither ironic nor clever. Old reliables like Nirvana and Rage Against the Machine acoustic were also popular. Evidently one time I got really wasted and sang all the words to Killing In The Name Of so now every time I get around this particular group of people while armed with guitars one of them screams "Dessie's gotta do Rage! Dessie, do the Rage!" (Only Irish people call me Dessie, pronounced Dezzy. lame) I've not been drunk enough to get in front of a barful of strangers and do acoustic Rage again though.

Brigid and her man Damien are usually the ones screaming for Dessie to do the Rage.

Graham has hated all of us since the beginning of the day. Lame. At least Cookie's into Hotel California or whatever other bullshit-ass campfire song is being sung.

Ach... the one thing denied me the entire night. However... I'm sure my liver will thank me in 20 years.