Dim Lit Hostel

When we arrived at St. Christopher’s Hostel, we almost walked straight passed it. The hostel has a bar attached to it, but we assumed that it was two separate buildings that were connected by a hallway. Fortunately, some nice people who were sitting outside of the bar told us that we were in the right place and to just go inside. We struggled with our bags, and finally made it to the check in area. Both Mo and I had two huge bags, as well as a heavy carry-on – plus I had my camera case to lug around. This is a critical part for later in the story. We checked in, and were a little confused at the fact that everyone working there was British. They were all very helpful and nice. However, according to the website our room was supposed to only cost 17 Euro each, but the total came to 47 Euro, which didn’t include the $10 deposit we had already made. At that point though, Mo and I just wanted to lay down, eat some food, let people back home know we’d arrived safe, drink a beer and go to sleep, so we paid the bill with no question. What we didn’t take into account was the tiny elevator.

Now, as I’ve said, both of us had two huge bags – mine both rolling duffels, hers regular suitcases – as well as relatively large and heavy carry-on bags. The elevator was about 3 feet by 2 ½ feet (this may be an exaggeration – but it was tiny!) So we decided that it would make sense if I went up first and then have Mo meet me at the room. She told me our room number was 14, and I saw no reason to disagree with this. Once I’d struggled to get my luggage in the elevator, I determined that I needed to go to the second floor (as per the check-in guys instructions) to get to room 14. When I got up there, I had to struggle with my bags up three stairs and through a door that simply refused to stay open. I held the card up to the door scanner, and waited for the light to turn green. It just blinked red. It was then that I realized the check-in guy had said room 16, and Mo had given me the wrong room number through no fault of her own, it was just a byproduct of our mutual exhaustion.

             

So, I had to get my bags back down to the elevator, wait about 10 minutes until it was free (this elevator liked to go straight passed your floor, even when it was empty). I finally found Mo and we managed to both get to our real room, and finally put down our luggage. Exclamations of  “I fucking hate luggage!!” were disbursed into our conversations quite regularly for the next day or so, until we were finally able to move into our apartments. We went off to find the showers because quite frankly neither of us had showered in over a day, and the humidity combined with all the luggage lugging was not a combination for smell success. The shower was a complete fail though – for me at least, I think Mo was able to get her shower to actually work. In my shower, you had to push a button to turn the water on and, just like those annoying sinks, it only stayed on for about 13 seconds. And rapidly fluctuated between burning and freezing. I managed to shampoo my hair, and just gave up. I had no energy for trying to figure out this crazy contraption.

             

We then tried to get the internet to work in our room – since the guy had given us the log in code, and told us to just enter it in when prompted. He forgot to mention that the internet only works in the bar. So we headed down to the bar, sent a few emails, caught up on gossip, and decided we didn’t really want to have our laptops down in the bar area. We put them back in the room, and ordered a drink and some food. Mo got the most delicious currywurst I’ve ever had. It was huge! And the third cheapest thing on the menu… Absolutely delicious.

           

When we came back upstairs, we realized how incredibly creepy the hostel was. The lights were never turned on in the hallways, so it had this insanely eerie vibe about it.

This was the hallway in the morning. Yes, it was that dark

The next day however, our cab driver completely made up for the many misfortunes of the previous day.He was an absolute riot! He spoke English, thank God, and as he was driving us through Berlin (a much nicer area than the previous trip) he was telling us all these fun things about the buildings we were passing. “Back in the olden times there was a castle across from that cathedral,” “I grew up on the East side of the wall, and that regime was just stupid. It wasn’t even that evil, just a stupid system” – just a few of the great things he shared with us. He seemed genuinely interested in what we both were here to study, and had a pretty firm grasp of Berlin history which made me really happy. I’m so sad we didn’t get a picture with him though! Oh well, maybe one day we’ll see him again