Interrail: Day 3

Day 3: Sunday the 23rd of November

The alarm shrieked at 9:00 a.m. in the morning. I switched it off and enjoyed the comfort of my sleeping bag. My initial plan last night had been to wake up at nine, step outside the house and fill my lungs with the crystal clear air of the countryside. I would have taken my computer and found a comfortable nook somewhere in the garden where I could write in peace and perhaps even enjoy the freedom of a cigarette.

Instead I rolled over in my sleeping bag, twisting it around me as I tried to find a comfortable position on the hard mattress. The bloody rooster was still singing outside the window and had done so all night. I closed my eyes hard and tried to pretend I was sleeping, tried to trick my mind into believing it so that I might return to real of dreams again, but without luck.

The rooster seemed to be mocking my somnolent wakefulness.

At 9:20 a.m. I began untangling myself from the sleeping bag, waking Emmi in the process. I scrambled after my toiletries and some clean clothes, touching my bed-head hair anxiously, hoping that my dreadlocks weren’t too troll like. I didn’t want to scare Emmi and Inga after all.

Skipping on the cold floor I hurried into the bathroom, entered one of the two showers there, noticing disapprovingly that the showers lacked locks. Scowling I arranged my things inside the shower (bar of soap, towel, clean clothes on a peg...) and tentatively turned on the water.

At first it was awfully cold and gave me such a violent attack of goosebumps that it hurt. But slowly the water got warmer and warmer until it was almost pleasant. Unfortunately the  sprinkle was rather weak and did not quite penetrate the thickness of my hair, but with some persistence and scrubbing I was able to leave the shower feeling quite clean. I dressed quickly, hopping from foot to foot to avoid standing for too long on the terribly uncomfortable cold floor.

Emmi and Inga scrambled to finish showering and dressing and at around 10 past 10 a.m. the three of us were all properly dressed once more and hurrying to the steps to have breakfast in Emma’s house. (We had agreed to meet for breakfast at 10:00 a.m.) Outside we met Emma who was going for a walk with a friend of hers, but her sister Malin would be more than happy to have breakfast with us.

Just as it had when we arrived the previous night the table stood ready for of us to simply dig in. Bread, marmalade, soy yoghurt, müsli of all sorts and dried biodynamic figs. We greeted Emma’s sweet grandmother and seated ourselves. I for one was awfully hungry and did my best to not seem too rude as I helped myself to some breakfast. Malin and her boyfriend joined us shortly before rushing of to some concert. We received some most fascinating green tea that had a rather poisonous looking fluorescent green shade to eat, that when I poured myself a second and a third cup (and possibly a fourth one as well?) turned gradually darker until it had a deep forest green hue. Despite its appearance I enjoyed the taste of it though I was not able to receive an answer I could comprehend about which kind of tea it was. Having finished breakfast we excused ourselves and were pretty much pushed out through the door before we had the time to offer to help washing up.

The farm looked very different in daylight. It looked even bigger, even older and ever more romantic. The sounds and smells and different colours played joyfully in my senses. We climbed up the stairs to our loft and with laptops and notepads under our arms we found a comfortable place in the common room of the farming students. We spent a good hour there writing and knitting while we waited for Emma. Emmi was getting a bit agitated as time passed by. She had promised a friend of hers to come visit her in Lyon and thus was in a hurry to see what time the trains left at from Frankfurt. Time ticked by and still there was no sign of Emma. Eventually Emmi and I went to have a look for her, and of course we met her as soon as we walked outside the door.

All together we went to the farm office only to realise that their server was down and that there was no internet.

“We’ll go visit someone who has internet.” Emma said simply and headed off in the opposite direction. I chuckled to myself, enjoying the ease in which we could simply barge into someone’s home here, their doors were open to anyone. I liked it. Though if my life were such I would always make sure I had internet.

Emma lead us into a big old house, rushed up three sets of stairs before knocking on a door. A blonde girl with thick dreadlocks opened the door, her eyelids drooping with tire.

“Can we come in to use your internet?” Emma asked with chirping cheerfulness. The girl blinked a few times and shrugged. “Sure.” She switched on the computer for us and took a seat at the kitchen table, kindly asking one of us to stay with her and help her with her homework. Inga smiled and sat down beside her whilst Emmi and I parked ourselves in front of the very old PC.

The train to Lyon from Frankfurt left at 2:30 a.m. I watched the screen apprehensively, thinking through what I wanted to check on the internet. I knew what I wanted, but it was so very spontaneous that it surprised me a little. It was a wish that he begun to grow in me as we started our journey to Frankfurt.

“I want to go somewhere too.” I announced loudly, mostly to myself. There was a large map of Germany on the right side of the computer. Emmi and I proceeded to finding an interesting city that wasn’t too far of from either Frankfurt or Basel. The plan was that most YIP’ies arrive in Basel at some point on monday. Inga and I had planned to take an early train together, and as Basel was only about four hours away from Emma’s home we would arrive before midday.

“Prague?” I asked out loud, finding the the Czech city on the edge of the map. I check the distance on the internet and quickly concluded that it was too far away. “Berlin?” I typed it into db.de as well. Berlin was only about four - five hours away from Frankfurt, and roughly seven hours away from Basel.

The decision made itself inside me then as reason coincided with my sudden spontaneity.

“Yeah, I think I’ll go to Berlin.” I said simply, scratching my dreads thoughtfully.

“Cool.” Emmi replied.

The following thirty minutes flashed by after my decision. Once I told Emma that I had decided to go to Berlin she immediately replied that she would her friend Magda who lived in Berlin to see if I could stay in her flat for the night. Magda spoke little english but had lived for a longer period in Chile and had a chilean boyfriend, thus her spanish was far better than mine. I spoke to her on the phone quickly, trying to decide if she was able to come pick me up from the Central station or not. Apparently Magda had a eurythmy performance and would probably not have time to come by but she would phone Emma later and give instructions about how I could find her house, then Emma would send me a text message with the instructions.

“Okay, you have ten minutes to pack your bags, then I’ll drive you to the metro.” Emmi and I glanced at each other once before rushing off, leaving Inga and Emma behind. They looked quite content to stay.

Emmi and I ran down the flight of stairs, out across the farm and up to our loft again. We proceeded to shoving everything into our big backpacks again, not having the time to organise our things at all. I crammed down my sleeping bag into its bag, collected my computer and mobile cable, and with that we were off.

We met Emma at the entrance of the farm and within seconds the three of us were packed into the Dottenfelder-Hof SUV. We bid farewell to farm as we drove of in a cloud of dust and a little snow. The day was grey as could be expected of November though it was not very cold.

Emma would not meet us in Dornach, thus Emmi and I gave her a big hug each wishing her the best until we saw her again in a weeks time. And then we found ourselves inexplicably waiting for the train as we had so many times already.

Once we arrived in Frankfurt we took out some euros at a cashpoint and proceeded to searching for something edible that we could bring on our journey. We had a loaf of bread each that we had brought from Sweden. Biodynamic and famous for its marvelous taste, Saltå Kvarns fruit-bread was screaming to be eaten in my backpack. Myself I had brought a vegan vegetable pate. Emmi bought a small cheese, we both bought a packet of cashew nuts each and a bottle of water each. I picked one I believed to be still and classic, but this would later prove to have been a fateful mistake.

We found our different platforms and thus with a final big hug we parted and I found myself completely alone in the middle of Frankfurt Central station. Hoisting my heavy backpack on my back I made way into the train. Inside I found a comfortable seat but was soon worried about the fact that a digital little sign above my seat said “Frankfurt - Hanover”. That’s not where I was going, and I knew that I wouldn’t have to make any changes on this train, it should go directly to Berlin.

The sign above the seat in front of me said “Frankfurt - Berlin” thus I decided i made more sense that I sit there. A few minutes later I learned what those signs were there for, they were reservations and marked where the person that had reserved them was going. A young german boy who spoke english with a sweet attempt at a british accent explained this to me thus forcing me to grab my heavy bag again and switch wagons twice before I managed to find an empty unreserved seat.

I made myself as comfortable as I could, brought up my laptop and disappeared into the realm of computers. I wrote and wrote and worked a little on Dreamweaver and Photoshop and when I got bored I brought out my camera, and lacking anything better to do, took photographs of myself. 

I had yet not received the text message from Emma telling me how to get to Magda’s house. But it was okay, I had a plan B incase the lines of communication would happen to be broken somewhere along the line. I knew that there was a train leaving Berlin at 9:30 p.m. thus if I had nowhere to sleep I would just take the night train to Basel.

At that point I received a text message from Emma.

Magda's house,from maintrainstation take bus120-frohnau/hainbuchenstrasse, exit leopoldplatz,walk to maxstrasse 5. Have a wonderfull time!love, emma

I spent a few seconds deciphering the text message, reading it through several times and trying to remember the names and numbers. I would return several times through my train journey to read the text message, trying to memorize it or at least a part of the message. Outside the sun began to set as we swished past the countryside leaving the snow behind us, traveling through green pastures that at the blink of an eye were suddenly once more covered in snow.

I listened to Lila Downs, Golbang and some other instrumental music. Usually I find it difficult to listen to someone singing when I am trying to type, at least if it is in a language I can understand thus did my best to allocate the foreign and instrumental music on my Ipod. Unfortunately as I am a terribly non-technical person I never really learned how to put music manually onto the Ipod and had instead let it load things automatically. The result was as I learned, not quite satisfactory.

Thirst came to me a few hours into my journey and thus I reached to open the bottle of still water I had bought at Frankfurt central station. It wasn’t still though, and silly me, because I can’t read german I had thought that classic meant it had no bubbles. The bottle pretty much exploded, and there I was, my laptop in front of me, panicking as water squirted everywhere.

Oddly enough as I opened my eyes to behold the destruction I found my laptop untouched, though I could not quite say the same about myself. I was soaked through from top till bottom.

Things were pitch-black outside my window now. I glanced at the clock on my computer screen. 6:02 p.m. We should arrive in Berlin soon.

The man on the speakers said something about Berlin that made me start. Had he said that we were arriving to Berlin now? Interestingly enough they always spoke for about two minutes in german and then took about 30 seconds to explain what they had said in english, and of course finishing with the seemingly obligatory “GOODBYE!” uttered in an extremely matter-to-fact, curt voice. I frowned and decided to not guess about if whether or not we were arriving at the Berlin Central station and kindly asked a couple in front of me if they spoke english.

They looked quite kind and helpful, and yes, they could speak english.

“I didn’t quite hear what we said, are we arriving at the Berlin Central Station?”

“No, Berlin schlannan...” He responded, I didn’t really catch what the last word or name was. “Berlin Central Station, next stop.” He added and smiled hesitantly, I thanked them and sat down again, calmly organising the things in my backpack as well as tightening the straps on it so that it would be less uncomfortable to carry.

When the train rolled into the Central station I felt ready. The backpack was perfectly secured around my waist, chest and shoulders. Everything was packed into it in a very balanced way. My shoes were tied, my jacket strapped onto the backpack. I adjusted my shawl to make sure that it covered my throat and neck and with a deep breath the rush to leave the train began as the doors were opened to the platform.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof is a very large place indeed and reminded me a lot about Heathrow Airport in London. The same chaos, the same sense of endless corridors and escalators that seemed to reach into the skies. The same shops. It’s fascinating how, regardless where you are in the world, an airport or a train-station will always have the exact same shops. Be it in England, Slovakia, Sweden or Germany, so far they had always been the same.

I trudged up to a service point and asked where the buses left from and received the curt answer, “out then left.” My patience with germans was beginning to run out. I uttered an equally curt thank you and left. Out then left.

There were no buses on the left side, only taxis and the road. I sighed. Either him and I had a different conception of where left was, or otherwise I might have gone out through the wrong exit, but seeing as how it was the closest one to the service point I had thought it made sense at the time. Sighing into the cold Berlin air I walked all the way around the Central station and eventually found the bus stops, the number 120 shining like a halo to me up on a pole. 15 minutes until arrival.

I sat down on a bench, feeling quite pathetic with my big backpack on, probably looking as if I hadn’t slept for a week, which to be honest wasn’t far from the truth.

I contemplated why it made sense to do these things. What I needed was a calm week of long baths, plenty of tea, peace and some quiet. This was in a way my vacation. So far I had not slept enough to compensate for my lack of sleeping during YIP, I had turned my eating routine upside down, I had hardly drunk any tea at all and I was probably a bit smelly too, but at the same time, the sense of freedom that filled me as I sat by myself on a bench outside Berlin Central station felt difficult to beat with a bar of soap and some honey.

The bus arrived, I got in, payed 2 euros something and proceeded to blocking the middle passage in the bus with my backpack. After I few stops I was able to sit down though, which was very nice indeed. Berlin gleamed dark and looming outside the bus. I decided almost at once that I did not want to experience the big city disdain again but would do my best to avoid the centrum and experience a part of Berlin that was beyond the gigantic shopping malls and trendy cafés. I had a slight idea of what I wanted to see when I was here, but that would have to wait, now I had to focus on my immediate task, finding Magda’s house.

Leopoldplatz, I got off unwillingly and found myself standing in the middle of a dark street in some suburban place of Berlin. The backpack did not feel quite as comfortable as it had when I got off the train half an hour ago.

What’s the worst thing that could happen? I thought and simply started to walk in some direction, thinking it couldn’t be that difficult to find, though after some ten meters I decided it was stupid to walk too far in case it was the wrong direction.

I only had to ask about five people where Maxstrasse was before I found my way there. The first three people had all said different things, so I was still not quite convinced that I was walking in the right direction until I saw the sign of the road. Now the question was of course, right or left?

Magda lived on number five and on my left side I felt the numbers were a bit too high, so right felt like the way to go. I continued walking along the dark empty road, noting that the streets were very poorly lit.

I passed by number 8, 7, 6, then there was a shop, and following the shop was number 5. A little voice inside me shrieked with happiness.

But it was not quite over yet.

The house was maybe five stories high and none of the doors were marked with any names. How was I to know which one was Magda’s? I’ll just find it, I figured, seeing in my head the terrible scenario of having to walk from door to door knocking on everyone, asking people if Magda lived there. Anxiously I walked up the first flight of stairs, and the second, and the third... I stopped thinking about how many stairs I had climbed as nervous as I was. None of the doors had any names.

But then, it might have been on the fifth floor, I saw a chalkboard displaying the house cleaning tasks and on it was the outcrossed name “Magda”. This had to be right.

I pressed the bell once, listened to it ring loudly on the other side. I knew Magda wouldn’t be the one to open because she had her performance, but she had mentioned something about that there would be people in her house anyway.

A man with cropped hair and a stubble opened the door.

“Guten tag?” He said curiously, eyeing my backpack.

I quickly explained in english that I was Magda’s friend, that I was staying in her room during the night and that she had said it was okay that I come over. For some reason I always felt time was of the essence when somebody thought I could speak german, if I didn’t correct them straight away I somehow felt I had tricked them. The man smiled insecurely and introduced himself as Robert. He took his key and opened the flat opposite to the one I had ringed at. He led me into Magda’s room, showed me where the toilets were and then disappeared back into the first flat.

I took a good look around the room. It was quite spacious and furnished sparingly. A poster of Victor Jara, an incense stick sitting in the window sill and a few bottles of wine and organic juice made me feel just like home. The only thing needed was music and tea. I brought out my laptop, plugged it into the wall and turned on Lila Downs on full volume. Now I needed tea. I peeked outside Magda’s room, took a few hesitant steps down one hall and then down the other, finding no sign of a kitchen. Strange.

I moved back to the room, unpacked some things to make me feel more at home. Bread, vegetarian pate, tobacco, water and watercolours.

I sat down with my laptop in my lap and spotted an internet-cable lying on the floor. Joy rushing through my body like electricity.

I plugged the cable into my computer and finally I was connected to cyberspace after the first time in one and a half days. As expected I had about 20 emails in my inbox, but I skimmed through them gladly. I read the news, checked facebook and some other websites and added my travel diary to my blog. One hour passed and it was nearly 8 p.m.

“Hello, I’m Marcel.” A tall german guy with a dark pony tail and a beard leaned into the room, smiling widely. I introduced myself gladly, explaining who I was.

“Yes, Magda said you would come. I was supposed to let you in, but you seem to have done alright.” He smiled nervously and asked me if there was something I needed to which I ardently replied:

“Tea.”

The kitchen was apparently in the other flat, the one I had ringed on first. Marcel explained to me that they owned both flats on the fifth level and one of the flats on the third floor and that it was a commune consisting of 12 adults and two babies. The word commune immediately made me both excited and interested. The kitchen was lovely in my eyes. Hundreds of jars with herbs, coffee, tea, rice, couscous and God knows what brimmed the shelves and cupboards. Marcel turned on the kettle and asked what kind of tea I would like. I had a look around the shelves and spotted a jar with Fairtrade Rooibos.

Marcel smiled and prepared a teapot for me. I learned that he was studying to be a teacher and was currently revising for his exams and thus had very little time to do anything else. He found it very funny that I had never met Magda before and that I had begun traveling to Berlin within half an hour of my decision. I told him about YIP and Sweden to which he listened with great interest.

After twenty minutes of chit-chat he excused himself and said he had to continue studying. I smiled, thanked him for the tea, crossed over to the other flat and parked myself in front of my laptop again. After three cups of tea I dragged a chair to the window of her room, opened it up and skipped up on the windowsill.

Tall grey houses rose like dark obelisks outside and above was the sky, tinged by an odd brownish hue. Despite the slight melancholy of the Berlin scenery I found it beautiful. Thick snowflakes began to fall slowly to the ground, Lila Downs played in the background and once more the feeling that had hit me on the ferry between Denmark and Germany filled me. Utter freedom.

I lit a cigarette I had rolled at some point when I was bored on the train, breathed in the fresh air deeply and gazed out into the beautiful urban panorama, smiling at my own freedom and the fact that I could do whatever I wanted because I was young and alive and an individual with my own will and my own thoughts.

I can do whatever I want.

At eleven or so Magda arrived just as I had laid down in the sofa to listen to Kate Rusby. Magda was a small woman with short dark hair and a kind smile. She greeted me warmly and together we made us another teapot, had some apple-mousse and apple-juice. Magda showed me a map of Berlin and told me where I could find the sights in Berlin apologizing for not being able to take me around herself. She was studying eurythmy in Berlin and had to travel quite far every morning and evening to get to and fro from her school. I assured her that I would be find and explained that I was quite happy to be on my own as it offered a nice change of the life with 39 other youths. She knew what I meant.

“It is both a blessing and a curse to live together with a large group of other people. Sometimes it’s the nicest thing you’ll ever experience, other times you just have to shut your door to them.” Magda said. So had Marcel also said, and so had I said as well many times after starting YIP.

But I think one learns several very important things when living with other people, in particularly large groups. One learns a lot about others but also about oneself, where one’s boundaries go and who you actually are. It is something most people should experience at least once in their lifetime.

What that in mind Magda and I realised that it was nearly midnight, and that we had to wake up at 7:30 a.m. We rushed to brush our teeth and in a flurry she had prepared the sofa bed for me and within minutes I found myself uncomfortably nestled in my sleeping bag. The sofa bed was quite hard but such was the price to pay for freedom, and I suppose that sleeping uncomfortably is the type of thing you’re supposed to do when you’re young.