🐇🚀 #481: Artemis 2 and Berlin, Uber buy, Sex-positive Insta ban

Enjoy yer holidays!

Apr 03, 2026

Happy holidays, y’all! Photo: Kai Schreiber via CC2.0.

Hi gang —

Welcome to the Jesus season, when we celebrate an ancient Harry Potter and his friends (one of whom is somehow just the ancient Harry Potter as a ghost).

Luckily, it means lots of days off but also closed shops, including today (Friday) and Monday. We have our list of what’s open when everything’s closed to help you survive.

Enjoy your holiday weekend and see you Tuesday!

Andrew

PS: I’ll be on a panel about English-language media in Berlin at 6pm April 8 at the Amerikanische Gedenkbibliothek. I’ll be talking about why we do this (because of you readers, duh). The event is free and there’s networking afterward! I don’t think I’ve ever networked.

PPS: Please give this issue’s sponsors a gander: balcony-scapers Easy Bee Berlin and flat-hunters Get the Flat.

Berlin on the moon

You know that Artemis 2 moon mission? A Berlin startup is onboard. The Tacheles satellite from Charlottenburg-based Neurospace will be released into the earth’s orbit as part of the mission, according to Der Spiegel (paywall). The satellite will test gear intended for the company’s HiveR moon rover that it hopes will be used in future moon missions. The satellite is named after the former Tacheles squat and art space in Mitte that is now little more than a gaudy tourist trap. Neurospace founder Irene Selvanathan came to Berlin in 1985 with her family, who were fleeing a civil war in Sri Lanka. She said she picked the name because she wanted to send a piece of Berlin into space, not the “tired name of some Greek god”. Amen.

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Yet another startup sold

Did you say Startup? Ride share giant Uber agreed to buy Berlin luxury chauffeur service Blacklane this week to expand into high-priced chauffeuring. Uber didn’t say how much it will pay but a 2024 financing valued Blacklane at €500 million, according to Wirtschaftswoche. The service was started in 2011 and now includes über-German financier Carsten Marschmeyer, Mercedes-Benz and several Gulf funds among its owners. Two stories about startups in one newsletter? Probably says something about the maturity of Berlin’s entrepreneurial scene.

Not-so-free speech for KitKat and Insomnia

My home country (US of A) may love to make noises about freedom of speech but its companies love to enforce its puritanical underbelly: KitKatClub and Insomnia had their Instagram pages taken offline this week by über social media company Meta, according to RBB24. The sex-positive clubs were accused of violating community standards but were offered little other information. Kitkat was able to get its page back but Insomnia’s main is still down and is relying on a backup site — it said its discussing its options with a lawyer. Insomnia is annoyed as as it regularly uses the platform for ticketing. Insta has become an unavoidable information site for businesses (we’re trying to do more on ours, for example). Actually, didn’t one of our readers write a book about this topic (remind me and I’ll gladly give a shout out)?

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🥦 The muddled truth about weed in Germany

👴 Nobody likes Merz

🐳 Things are not looking good for the whale

Factoid

AI’s interpretation of Good Friday in Berlin.

Dancing is officially VERBOTEN on Good Friday in Germany because of the whole Jesus thing but Berlin has the most liberal interpretation of the ban — swinging your hips to loud music is not allowed between 4am and 9pm, which is pretty much when clubbers aren’t dancing anyway. And, like most laws in Berlin, no one’s really enforcing that one either. In the past, many code enforcement officers weren’t around to even do their jobs because (wait for it) it’s a holiday, according to an older Morgenpost article. Officers in Neukölln have also never actually found a violation when they looked — Schrödinger’s dance ban?

📯 📯 📯 Postkutsche (reader mail) 📯 📯 📯

Reader Hawley MacLean had this to say about my comment on whether a first floor is a first floor:

Great content! thanks for the newsletter. Just wanted to give you a note that Russians also use the 1st floor = ground floor like us (commonalities in the most unexpected places)

*We love reader mail so feel free to comment below or write with comments, criticism and compliments.

Gardener for busy expats with small spaces. Relax in lush plants without the hard work of gardening. Enjoy peace and privacy in your own garden that strengthens you for life’s challenges. You might be: New parents looking for a kid & pet safe garden. First time buyers with a weed filled garden. Struggling to balance work/life & longing to relax in your own beautiful garden. People who find themselves with an empty balcony in a new home. Owner of an office full of dead plants!