Best Places to Stay in Berlin for Bohemians

What neighborhood would best suit this group of green fairies?

MAY 2022

“Should we go for the modern industrial style loft over the authentic older building with four flights of stairs?”

 “Everyone is going to have to bunk together, it will be like an artist sleep-away camp. So, keep that in mind.”

 “Sleep-away camp, I like that. Hopefully no one is surprised when they realize the two single beds per room are basically a double bed with a line drawn down the middle.”

 “Two bathrooms for 8 Bohemians. That’s what really matters.”

 “Are you going to be staying there?”

Mark looks down at me from him laptop. He’s sitting at our kitchen table. I’m in the baby’s play area spinning plastic stacking rings to keep Hero entertained so I can carry on this meeting.

“Me? No. Oh no. My boys are coming with me.”

Mark Is a habituel bon vivant. A devoted uncle, but his eyes glaze over when I talk about parent life for more than 30 seconds. To his great credit, he offers no opinion about my choice to bring Hero with us on our Bohemian tour. And so, as a producer I scout one Airbnb for our child-free ensemble. As a Mother, I scout another across the canal in family friendly Freidrichshain for the Peachey Rosso 3.

Five star reviews for both places, if you’re traveling to Berlin anytime soon.

Freidrichshain 2 bedroom Loft, with high chair, one low full size bed great for bedsharing, best park nearby.

Unique Bohemian Loft, yes that was the name of it! for 8 green fairies in Kreuzberg.

JUNE 2022

My finger clicked purchase and the fizzy endorphins rushed to my head. “The three of us are going to Berlin!”, I sigh with relief. 

Yes, it was my dream to travel to Europe and perform. Yes, I had raised the funds, lost them, and earned them again. Yes, we were going on credit, a whisper and a prayer that lucrative gigs would appear for me between now and then to pay it off.  It had all become so much bigger than our original idea for the Berlin tour. But, now I finally had what I needed to make it happen – my family.  

AUGUST 2022

“Did we ever get our money for the deposit back?” It’s early morning and Hero and I are doing the shoes, hat, sweater dance to get him into the backyard. As I register Christian’s question, I feel my face go all performer-ey. Big eyes. Surprised. I told you so. “I used it to pay off the credit card. To pay for Hero’s ticket to Berlin.”

“Oh. I never saw that money.”

“I’m sorry honey. I thought I told you.” I wait. Waiting for Christian to tell me, what? That he wants his half of the deposit back? That we shouldn’t have bought our son his own seat on the plane? His shoulders hunch.

“I was just looking at my savings, that’s all. I thought that might be coming back.”

Our tickets were purchased with vouchers we received from the original, ill-fated 2020 trip. But Hero’s seat was my choice. I did not want to chance 12 hours on an airplane with a thirty pound toddler in my lap. Some things are worth $800, even if it’s $800 you don’t yet have. 

SEPTEMBER 2022

“It feels like 2020 all over again!” I burst into tears and put my face in my hands. As my emotions surge, I hit myself over the head, and pull my hair. A temper tantrum.

I’m sitting in my attic office space. Christian watches me mournfully from the bottom of the staircase. It’s a quirk of our latest rental, attic steps that remind me of trips to Amsterdam, stairs so steep and narrow you could climb them like rocks.

“Just take a deep breath and try calling them again in an hour.”

He doesn’t attempt to scale the steps to give me a hug, which shows foresight on his part. I’ve just been informed that one of the tickets I purchased for our Seattle artists headed to Berlin has changed the reservation to include a 24 hour layover in Dublin. And my calls to try and change it, or receive a refund, are met with denial and fine print. It’s not the end of the world. But today, it’s too much for me. I repeat my complaint of the past two years of pandemic motherhood.” 

“I’m just so tired. I should never have said yes to this. I can’t do it.”

Now, he crosses to me, using the bannisters to heft himself over the broken step that’s laced together with a steel brad.

“You’re already doing it, my love.” 

My sister calls me a ruthless optimist. I have favored the sunny side of the street since our parents divorce when I was seven. When my mom asked how I was feeling, I pressed my nose against the window glass on her station-wagon and said joint custody would be great because I would get two Christmases.

“I’m so tired of finding a way to make it all work out.” 

In Berlin, our acrobat Andreas is easily the most jovial artist on the tour. Raised in Heidelberg, he speaks Deutsch and is constantly rallying the other performers on outings and expressing enthusiasm for the tourist life. He’s the one with the ticket who got stuck in Dublin an extra day. He went to view the book of Kells and bounced right into the Berlin craziness of rehearsals even though it was later than originally planned.

My meltdown about the ticket change? All a part of the Artist Mama process, I suppose.

Christian and I celebrating his birthday in our backyard in 2022

SEPTEMBER 2022

“Could you please change out the Kabarett der Namenlosen photo for one of Der Frecher Salon in Italy, please? And do you think you could find a vintage tuxedo? 1880’s – 1950’s, we’re not too specific.”

My messages with Le Pustra in the days before their 2022 tour to Seattle were business-like yet filled with the excited tremolo of a challenge.

As their flight landed, I turned onto the cobbled First Avenue North of Queen Anne Hill. Mark rents an unassuming basement two bedroom with a view of the Space Needle. It’s one of those rare finds, a 1960’s style building built for the world’s fair and with rents that haven’t gone up in years. Mark has never been one to embrace the traditional, he and his longtime girlfriend live separately, but it’s obvious from the contact solution and neatly collected hair ties in a ceramic dish in his bathroom, that they are together most nights. So, he’s easily able to be generous when Damian, Ulrike and Charly Voodoo need a place to stay for the Seattle leg of our Bohemia Tour. He’ll stay at her place.

I can see Mark’s car pull in behind me, and there they are! I exit my mom-mobile legs first, making sure to flash my knee high boots and pull my vintage powder blue horn rimmed sunglasses down over my eyes. I may be a tired toddler parent but I remember how to make a first impression as a performer.

Damian, out of drag, is wearing all black, with a small, well-groomed mustache and neat tortoiseshell spectacles.

“Opal! Here we are, can you believe it?”

The warmth of his embrace takes my breath away. I’ve brought these successful cabaret artists to Seattle. We’ve never met in-person. This is huge! 

Two days later.

“If you’re not going to run all the acts, what I need from you is to talk me through the whole show. I’m going to be calling it from backstage, so I won’t have the best view.” 

Damian is sweating and obviously tired, the Berliners are nine hours ahead and it’s already 10pm. I’ve heard only two songs of his, that require our American performers to sing and learn choreography and seen one burlesque number – a stunning, spinning butterfly act based on Anita Berber. The outline has two hours of material.  

“It will come together, but only if I know every single cue and standby. Will you play me the last four measures of the medley again?”

The Parisian pianist, Charly Voodoo, has draped one of the fur coats for the flapper’s costume over his shoulders. The chapel we are rehearsing in is chilly, even for Seattle.

Charly is the resident genius, his hands floating, then violently pounding the keys of the baby grand. I’m impressed, but I’m also in my element. I know the Triple Door, the designers, the service staff. I haven’t stage managed in over a decade, but the control and confidence required are an easy fit, surprisingly. As a producer, I’m constantly making things up as I go along. Parenting? That’s the name of the game.

Rehearsal shot of Damian (Le Pustra) directing Justine Stillwell with Charly VooDoo on the keys

“Thank you so much. I didn’t expect anything like this. You made it so easy for me to be here.”

Exiting stage left at the Triple Door after his last curtain call, Le Pustra stopped by my comm. station to give me another hug. Le Pustra’s Naughty Salon was nothing short of a home-run. All the elements were in place for perfect Artist Mama synergy in the first leg of our Cabaret Exchange and I couldn’t be more proud.

OCTOBER 2022

“Mama, Dada, airplane. Hero tie-tie boy” At 19 months old our son can repeat back almost every word we throw at him. He chants the names of his beloved family before he falls asleep “Madam, Dada, Tante, Nana, Pop Pop, Poppy, Gaga…so much”

It’s baby talk, a language only a parent could love, but his verbosity makes everything click for me. The Peacheys love words. My Pennsylvania Dutch side of the family was never very touchy-feely but we tell our love in explanations and stories, long-winded jokes save the day regularly. Hero’s words make it that much easier to bring him into our family.

“Bye Bye Mama! Ruv-oo. Hero look.” That sweet farewell before I leave him with my sister (his Tante) to spend the night at rehearsal is another world from the infant who cried if he saw me leaving, or only gazed at me with trust and confusion.  Words matter.

And so parent life has shifted, as everyone said it would, just as we ready ourselves for the October trip to Berlin.   

Opal and Hero in September, around the time of The Naughty Salon

My view from the booth writing cues at The Triple Door