Turns out Texas is the hotspot des tages for German citizens. Lone Star fetishes are cropping up all over the place in Deutschland. You've got Germans who dress up in boots, spurs, and (fake) pistols to boot-scoot-boogie on the dance floor, plus mock battles between Germans dressed as cowboys and Indians; and in Berlin, visitors to "Old Texas Town" can tour "Main Street," stop by the Bank of Texas and a gold mine, then practice their square-dancing or drop in for a drink at a saloon.

Check it out -- the BlackBook guides have expanded into four new international metropoli. Now you can plan that next jaunt with the best shops, restaurants, nightlife, and hotels for Berlin, Hong Kong, Rome, and Tokyo. We're well past 50 destinations worldwide, and our guides are only getting bigger and better. Coming soon: Houston, New Orleans, and more.

1. Berlin (Wrigleyville) - Dark omnisexual house/industrial/video club for serious dancers and adventurous straighties.
2. Bon V (West Loop) - Bottle service on Randolph Street? A Bears superstar's sibling tries his luck with a VIP lounge in the famed district.
3. Charlie’s Chicago (Wrigleyville) - Country boys early, with their cousins from the city taking it over for late-night dance parties. Yee-haw!

While former fashion designer Helmut Lang left his namesake house, and the fashion world entirely, to pursue a career in fine art -- namely with the cheekily titled project, "hl-art" -- nearly three years ago, Lang’s innovative, pared-down fashions have certainly not been forgotten. In fact, Lang’s iconic deconstructivist designs are seeing new light thanks to an exhibit housed in German arts magazine 032C's Konstantin Grcic-designed Museum Store in Berlin.

If the answers are genocide, apartheid and water-boarding, the question just might be ... what are really terrible thematic ideas for a drinking establishment? And the reality of the mitigating effects, in some situations, of chronological distance seems to matter little to the mortified locals protesting Berlin’s new and brilliantly polarizing Stasi themed bar Zur Firma. Owners Will Gau and Wolfgang Schmelz certainly weren’t using subtlety as a guiding principle; not only is their bar adjacent to the former Ministry of State Security, but the space also used to house a Skinhead hangout.

Here's a wonderful thing you can't have! (Yet.) Only 40 of these custom-leather iPhone pouches were handed out as comp gifts during Berlin's fashion week by Mercedes-Benz, celebrating the launch of their GLK-Class line of wunderbar autos. The glittery "GLK" logo is made of Swarovski crystals that actually transmit the comforting glow of your iPhone's display when safely pouched. If you want a black variation, you'll have to wait till October.

“New York is sooo over,” says recent New Yorker-turned-Berlin transplant Jordan Nassar, gesturing at me with a cigarette as the smooth voice of jazz musician Lisa Bassenge fills the smoky back room of Pampero Apartment, where a few dozen Berliners crowd on a handful of sofas nursing dark beers and making me feel hopelessly conventional. “That’s my quote.” It’s my first night in Berlin, and I'm tagging along with former Gridskipper writer and current expat Emilie Trice as she makes her rounds through an underground nightlife scene that's rapidly putting New York to shame.

"So... did you get a pen in the gift bag?" we ask, wondering if we missed out on serious swag at Sunday night's Montblanc-sponsored after-party for Julian Schnabel's latest documentary, Berlin. "No, but the girl at the door checked my name off her list with one." Relief.