"You take the midnight subway train
You're callin' all the shots
You're struck by lightning
You're in love
You take the evening one on one
You're only livin' to have fun
You want to use me, take me home tonight
I'll make you wish that you were mine"
― Ratt, You're In Love
The bus to Berlin did not set off until 11am and it took a very long time, about 6 or 7 hours. I did not meet anyone on the bus so I would have spent it reading and listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. Once I got to Berlin it was night time and the bus station was dark. I remember following everyone off the bus somewhat blindly and without speaking to anyone I ended up in a subway station. I thought it was appropriate to play the Ratt album "Invasion of Your Privacy" I had discovered the band while backpacking and the opening song felt apt. I queued up to buy a ticket but once I got to the Machine I still did not know what station I should get off at or what ticket I needed. So I walked out of the queue and went to look at a map on the wall. The station was very busy with many people coming off the bus.
After trying to figure out where I needed to go and guess what ticket I needed the station had gone silent. Everyone else from the bus knew where they were going and bought their tickets within a few minutes. The combination of the dark night, cold weather, being tired and now standing in an empty subway station in Berlin was spooky. I rushed down to the platform and very quickly got on a train. I got off the metro and I had a very short walk to the hostel called St Christopher's Berlin Alexanderplatz, it was refreshing not to have a long walk to the hostel. St Christopher hostels as I had found out in Bruges were basically pubs with rooms, on booking I had not realised that the hostels were linked and I was now going to spend the next 5 days living in a pub.
As I tried to enter the hostel a bouncer tried to "bounce" me, I showed him my huge backpack and he let me go on in. It was about 8 or 9pm on a Friday so the pub was very busy, I remember sports being shown on the TV screens. I checked in and immediately bumped into the Canadian man I had briefly met in Amsterdam a few days before, he had taken a flight to Berlin. He was with a woman, I can't recall much about her as we did not speak that night. He invited me out on a bar crawl that was leaving in an hour! I was reluctant to go as I had a really long bus ride and my phone battery was already low. But despite being tired I said yes.
I found that the Elevator was broke so I walked up the stairs. Upon entering the relatively small room I found a group of people sitting on the floor playing drinking games, they were younger than me. I also notice two older men trying to avoid the drinking party, lying quietly on their beds at the back of the room. After such a long journey it was not a sight I wanted to see. I made small talk with the party goers as I unpacked my bag, one was noticeably energetic. After 15 minutes they left for the bar, they were pre-drinking apparently.
The party goers had been loud and had dominated both the room and the conversation, once they had left I approached the two men lying on their beds.
"So, who are the normal people in the room?"
I asked, making reference to the obvious chaos of the party goers. They laughed and introduced themselves, Australian backpackers on a large trip around Europe. They were both really tall and thin, almost looking like twins. They were travelling fast and if I remember correctly had just got back from Lapland in Finland. We spoke briefly and then I got changed had a fast shower and headed down stairs to meet the Canadian man.
We waited in the bar for a while and then headed out to the meeting point. I had actually not spent much time with this man and I had just arrived in Berlin. The night felt rushed and unplanned. We got to the meeting point and we found a group of Indians also going on the same bar crawl. I made small talk with them, they were mostly electrical or software engineers and for many their first time out of India. They had never been to a club before so I noticed some similarities with myself. I also said hello to two Korean women who were going with us as well.
YOU ARE READING
My Backpacking Memoirs
Non-FictionIn 2017 I embarked on a three month backpacking trip around Europe. Motivated by the many accounts of travel from within religion, I went to learn. But what I experienced was not what I was expecting. This was my first time leaving the UK since I wa...
