Fool

A nice evening turned sour. Turned into not such a great evening. Embarrassed good-bye. 5 o’clock in the morning. Come out of an apartment building. Whatever. A little drama. Forget about it. Not too far from home luckily. Unlock bicycle and walk to the gate. Try to open, realise that it is locked. Walk back to door. It is also locked. No idea which doorbell. Not a clue. No mobile telephone. No window to throw stones at. Walk back to gate. Locked. Other gate. Locked. Search for other exit. Nothing. No other way out, nor in.
Stuck in a courtyard. In December. No one around. Great.
Slight deja vu.
Shit.
Contemplate going to sleep in the courtyard. Rather not. Walk around for a little while and come to a conclusion. There are two options.
1. Climb a tall cement wall topped with masses of barbed wire. Hope to live.
2. Try to squeeze through the bars of the front gate. Hope not to get stuck.
Neither can be done with a bicycle so lock that again. Consider the options. Reflect. Bars in gate seem too close. Climbing in high heals and a dress does not seem like a good idea either. Luckily sober. Still, squeezing seems like the more feasible option, perhaps embarrassing but definitely less dangerous.
Walk back to gate. Examine. There is only one possibility. On the right, down by the street. All the others are definitely to tight. Bend down, try to put legs through first. No way. Head first. Ok. Down to shoulders. Ok. Breasts. Ok. Down to waist. Ok hips… bum… hmmm… not so easy. Not so easy to go back either. Ok. Push. Squeeze. Push. Bum is too big. Fuck. No. Have to push. It’s soft flesh, must be able to squeeeeeeeeze…
Relief!
Stand up. Dust off. Feel a bit like a hero. What is the address? Walk back and look at building. Write down house number. Pick up bicycle tomorrow. Sigh. Start walking slowly away. Someone is coming. Did he see? It’s not illegal to break out of a house. Is it? This is Germany, who knows! He walks to the gate, takes out keys, opens it.
Run back before he closes it again: 'Oh, excuse me, entschuldigen! My bicycle.. Ich habe mein Fahrrad… ummmm… kan Ich...?'
Man nods, pushes gate open, walks to other gate and opens it too. Leaves both open and goes inside. Unlock bicycle. No hurry. No need for squeezing this time. Walk back through gate. Cycle home in a little bit of rain.


That was 4 weeks ago, and it was the last stupid situation I got myself into that year.
During my almost 2 months in Berlin everything else has been wonderful. And to be honest, even that was kind of wonderful… in an embarrassing, momentarily unhappy kind of way, it’s true, but still, It makes me kind of happy to think about it.
Now I have 10 days left of my stay here and I look forward to every one of them.