Trains and waiting around.. (Becky)

We took a loooong train ride on Saturday. That’s pretty much it. We made sandwiches on the train, found a copy of The Economist on the train, and read books on the train. Exciting.

When we got to our hostel in Berlin, no one was there to greet us. We called the number listed on the door and got no response, so we grumpily sat on the street with our packs and waited. Finally, another guest opened the door and let us in, assuring us that the owner would show up. And that the owner was gay, a stickler for cleanliness, and kind of a weird guy. Other guests arriving later shared the same observations about the owner. Finally, two boring hours later, the owner showed up and gave us our beds. We had been planning to go out to a crazy techno dance party (this is my stereotype of what people do in Berlin), but by this point I was too tired to do much of anything and we just crashed for the night. While we watched online television and mellowed out, our hostel owner was running around, playing music, and dyeing his hair. He asked if anyone else wanted to dye their hair black “like a Spanish boy,” and one of the Canadian backpackers agreed – so the owner cheerfully cut and dyed his hair in the hostel bathroom. Jeremy refused to dye his hair black, unfortunately..