Like New Yorkers know anyway

As I am off to the States to have a truly cheap vacation (draft Augustiner at the River Room in Edgeworth Borough: $1. Italian ice at Iceworks: $1.35. Twin-language banter with lady friend: free. Hanging out with friends in the golden ghettos of Pittsburgh: priceless), I caught this NYT article advising you, the assumedly fortysomething Manhattanite with a cell phone mounted on your belt and a sweater about the neck, how to rough it in Berlin. "Scheiße!" I was heard to exclaim -- echtes-style, with the spike in the middle. What do these pussies know about living in Berlin?

I lived in this city for four months without a full-time job, expenses or basically anything other than a bed-roll and a Danke. Don't let some Harvard-educated fat-cat tell you how to live here. He's probably afraid to ask that Turk over there how to get to Sorauerstrasse. I threw a small stone at that Turk yesterday. Look, he won't make eye contact with me. Now stick with me, kid, I can even get you through the Terror Trifecta of early July -- the World Cup final, the Love Parade comeback, and -- well, July is always expensive, innit?

LODGINGS
Stay with someone. Hostels are super-cheap here but "for the ugly," as Victor Ward puts it, and hotels are dumb and way too much. You might not know it yet, but someone in Berlin will put you up. Bulletin that ass on your Myspace or Friendster, be annoying and ask everyone, network, just go that extra mile. Chances are, any friend or well-wisher located in Berlin has leaned on other people so often just to stay afloat there that they'll be karmically obliged to put you up under the mildest pretense. You'll have more fun that way, you won't worry about your gear and you'll end up meeting more people. Of course, you should also do all the dishes, wash the floor while you're working off your hangover (no one in the WG does this), and cover the zusammen bill every night at the bar. That's how this shit works, selfish.