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I am not sure why it took me so long to get there, but I finally had a chance to spend a week in Berlin. Wow, what an amazing city! Superb night life, funky atmosphere, interesting encounters, bizarre people, bustling street-life, excellent dining and impressive architecture made the visit an unforgettable experience.

It landed straight in the first spot of my ‘top cities of world’ list (other cities on my list are New York, Tel-Aviv and Barcelona).

As I assume guidebooks cover all the standard recommendations, so here are some specific night-life ones:

Berghain is probably the most famous club in Germany, and rightly deserves its reputation. Party at this 4-story-high abandoned factory starts at midnight and ends at 8pm the following day. You can find yourself standing in line to get in for more than an hour, only to be denied an entrance by the formidable selectors. Yet if you are lucky enough to get in, you’ll enjoy quite a remarkable experience.

Bar 25 is another great nightlife spot in Berlin. Magical vibe, excellent music and hundreds of young people create a dazzling atmosphere.

Zu Mir Oder Zu Mir is a great little bar that feels like a part of movie set from seventies.

Cafe Zapata is a small anarchists heaven in the middle of a beautiful neighborhood. Rastafari rolling joints, drunk tourists, street artists and live bands make this place another must-stop for the curious.

Monsieur Vuong is an excellent and super-popular Vietnamese restaurant in the city center.

It has been exactly ten years since my last visit to Barcelona, and fortunately, the spontaneous trip came in a perfect timing for the worldcup weekend.

Despite all the political issues between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, the City of Barcelona had setup a large screen in Plaza Espana, and the atmosphere was amazing.

(I am not sure why the song “Born in the USA” was being played; as far as I remember the first White American was Spanish, not the other way around…)

We started prepping for the game at noon with a bottle of wine, then a late lunch with more wine, and what-do-you-know, they were selling alcohol at the Plaza. Driving back home at 2:30am on the scooter was, how should I put it, a bit irresponsible.

It’s been hot in Barcelona in the last few days, and not only because of the Mondial. Nonetheless, between the endless glasses of white wine, I managed to take some nice photos. Here are a few of the steady ones.

I coincidentally found out that the beautiful documentary “The Beckoning Silence” is freely available on YouTube. An amazing and touching story of a fatal attempt of ascending Eiger’s north-face in 1936.

Highly Recommended.

Alec Brownstein was looking for a job, so he created a cool campaign: When top advertising creative directors Googled themselves, they got a message from him asking for a job. Total cost of campaign: $6.

Lesson Learned: Think out of the box and get noticed.

A quick update (although this news is over a month old): I recently joined Bessemer Venture Partners as an entrepreneur-in-residence. It’s an extremely exciting place to be in while searching for my next project, as I have the opportunity of working with some of the smartest people in the business.  I’ll be spending my time between NY and Israel, and, as always, will continue meeting entrepreneurs with innovative ideas, interesting technologies and fresh distribution models. If you have an exciting project you want to share with us (BVP) or with me personally – just shoot me an email.

As a side project, I am looking to build a team that will compete with the looks of Microsoft in its early days.

With Apple’s stock sky rocketing to its all-time high and Apple about to surpass Microsoft in valuation, it’s pretty interesting to compare its 5-year stock performance to its traditional arch-nemesis (well, at least until Apple decided that everyone is their nemesis). While Microsoft is up 16% since 2005, compared to -3.5% for the S&P, Apple shares soared a whopping 626%.

How many people remember that in 1997 Microsoft invested $150M in Apple and saved it from going bankrupt? Apple’s CFO Fred Anderson was quoted then saying: ”This deal strengthens Apple’s viability. It’s a new era in terms of Apple and Microsoft working together“. Yeah right! They have been working together perfectly since; best friends just like me and the platoon sergeant in my basic training.

Lessons learned: Don’t try to avoid a threat of antitrust charges by helping your ailing, yet talented, competitor stay out of trouble.

Still, I would have rather invested $100,000 in Microsoft 25 years ago (I must acknowledge though it would have been a tough investment decision for an 8 years old). If I would have done so, this blog would have been written using a golden font.

(disclaimer: It’s a casual blog post for entertainment purposes; dividends and other factors were not taken into account)