[Preface: The following journal writing of a weekend excursion in Berlin, Germany in September of 2012, is presented here completely unedited, as it is written directly from my Fifth journal book. It is [10] hand written pages.]
I'm going to call this one - The Gray Shoelace Travels...(I tied a gray shoelace to the handle of my small black suitcase to mark it - instead of a name tag.)
It was quite late on a chilly September Wednesday night - around 11PM. I was twenty minutes early - Elin had dropped me off at a bus stop in Moss - the Mosseporten stop for the Go-By-Bus, she planned a surprise four day weekend journey for me. The bus came at 11:20PM.
(Time lapsed - I lost some thoughts....) Weeks have gone by, picking back up the pen, unfinished rambled drunken thoughts on the Berlin weekend from the previous page - with a pause to write a poem, inspired from reading Bukowski's poems.... I already had it in my head, I knew there probably wouldn't be so much to this story - that weekend was a long bar-hop drunk.
I loaded my small black suitcase with the gray shoelace into the baggage compartment under the bus and got on. The late night bus was packed, I took a seat next to some guy sleeping. I had my skateboard standing propped up between my legs leaning against the seat in front of me, my small Krooked green military style sidebag rested on my lap, I stuck my pillow behind my head, popped a snus, put on my headphones and iPod - started with going through some Hip-Hop then to Metal - Iron Maiden and Slayer. I tried to sleep most of the way for the five and a half hour bus ride to Helsingborg Sweden. The bus made stops along the way - Sarpsborg Norway, Udevalla Sweden around 1:30AM, Goteborg Sweden around 2:30AM, and I was in Helsingborg around 4:50AM - twenty minutes early. I really didn't know what was in store for me that coming weekend, or who I was meeting up with, well that is until I arrived in Helsingborg. I stayed unsure, but also figured I may be meeting Elin's brother Christian, and so there I sat - just after 5AM in a cold dark September Thursday morning on a wooden bench at the bus station in Helsingborg Sweden - and Christian comes walking up across the parkinglot, we hugged. He took me on a short tour, driving around Helsingborg then we went to his house. The sun was rising now. He and I sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking, shortly after in this very early morning his wife Charlotte with their two kids Mandis and Alba, followed by - to my surprise, Elin's other brother Andreas came downstairs. We all drank coffee, ate breakfast, and talked. Late in that morning, Andreas's friend Kjell Arne showed up. The four of us loaded up our luggage into Kjell Arne's car and off we went starting our weekend journey. Our first stop was still in Helsingborg at the factory of Koenigsegg - which is a Swedish based, built custom sports car, some of the employees at Koenigsegg are glass customers of Christian's, and we got a private tour of the factory. We left the Koenigsegg factory, and it was back onto the highway. Down through Copenhagen, Denmark, we drove on. We had to take a ferry next. The ferry ride was an hour and forty-five minutes. The ferry left the port in Southern Denmark around 3PM, and this is where I found out we were headed to Germany - to Berlin, but I was still not sure if anyone else would be meeting up with us. We ate lunch at the café on the ferry - the food wasn't so good. The only thing vegetarian was the french fries, which tasted like fish. We drank a couple of beers, and bought more alcohol in the duty free shop on the ferry. Close to 5PM we got in to the port in Germany, and it was another two to three hour drive into Berlin. I don't really remember - I think it was sometime between seven and eight PM when we got into Berlin, to our hotel. The hotel was called the Ambassador. There was a nice small pub right across the street from the Ambassador, that pub became our local spot for the weekend. We started and ended our days and nights of drinking and bar-hopping there. So many good pubs and restaurants in Berlin. (I had the thought that my friend Andre may show up. The whole weekend trip was after all a surprise, and Elin did tell me I could bring my skateboard if I wanted...days before, Andre had told me that he was going to be somewhere in Germany on business but that he was bring his board too, so I got the thought he could be in on the surprise and show up. He didn't.) We had three nights and two days in Berlin. It was a Thursday night, full day on Friday - Friday night, full day Saturday - Saturday night, and we left mid-morning on Sunday. Between Friday and Saturday we went to Check Point Charlie - the Check Point Charlie museum, some old church in the city center - the remains of the old church bombed out from World War II, the Bauhaus Arkiv - (which cost 7 Euros entrance and was a lot smaller than we thought it would be...we all agreed it really wasn't worth 7 Euros.), the East Side Gallery, the T.V. tower - but we didn't go up into the tower - Friday it was closed, and when we went back on Saturday, the line and wait was too long. Everything else in-between was random sight seeing around Berlin, walking about the city streets, subway rides, restaurants and pubs - drinking and more drinking, photos were taken. The mornings after breakfast at the hotel Christian and I would take shots of Underberg to start the days. Saturday night - in complete drunkenness - on the way back to the hotel, we stopped off at a grocery store to buy snacks and some more alcohol - I bought more Underberg and a bottle of 66% Absinth. So much drinking that weekend. In the mornings the four of us were hungover and haggard. It would even out in the early afternoons when we would start drinking again, and get food. - Sunday mid-morning we ate breakfast and checked out of the Ambassador. We loaded our luggage back into Kjell Arne's car and it was back onto the Autobahn for that two to three hour drive to the port to catch the ferry back to Southern Denmark. Kjell Arne had booked for the 3PM ferry, but we got to the port a bit before 1PM - with time to catch the one o'clock ferry but it was full booked, so we couldn't take it. We had to wait for the 3PM ferry. We had two hours. We went to the duty free shop at the port, the guys bought more beer and other alcohol to bring home, and the gas station next to the duty free shop had a small café - we ate lunch there. Then it was back on the ferry for an hour and forty-five minutes. We didn't drink any beer on the ferry ride this time. The four of us laid out on the floor of one of the observation decks under the windows to sleep a little bit. I woke up to find myself alone, I had to find the guys. Off the ferry, Southern Denmark, back driving on the highway - through Copenhagen, and back on into Southern Sweden. We got to Christian's house around 8PM. We all sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, eating, and talking about the weekend and life. We said our goodbyes, gave hugs, then Andreas and Kjell Arne left - heading their ways home, I still had a few hours until Christian had to take me back to the bus station in Helsingborg. My bus home was scheduled for 11:40PM. I laid on the couch resting, watching T.V., taking a few more small shots of Absinth, and chatting with Christian and Charlotte.
The bus was packed - mostly with high school kids, I took a seat next to some girl who was sleeping - she stank real bad like she needed a shower...the kids were noisy, talking, changing seats, just all over the bus. I put my headphones and iPod on and tried to sleep as much as I could. I brought two of the small shot bottles of Underberg on the bus and drank those during the journey home. Once again five and a half hours on the bus. I was at the stop at Mosseporten about fifteen minutes early, Elin was to pick me up around 5:30AM - it was Monday morning, I sent her a text message, took a piss behind the bus stop shelter, and waited for her. We got back to our apartment, she had to finish getting ready to leave for work - we both had to work that Monday. I went back to bed and got a few more hours of sleep before I had to catch the 10AM bus to work.
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