From Belfast to Berlin (2)

I am not loose. I am not cool.

On the S-Bahn I hold my hands between my knees and count the stops with my fingers.

I have two passports. They are never in the same location. I walk around with emergency tupperware of musli and yoghurt.

Just, you know, in case.

…Shit, was that stop 8 or 9?

On the train to the Belfast Aircoach, high on emmigrant self-satisfaction, I talk shite about how I’ll shop where they shop, hang where they hang. I’m not gonna be no tourist.

10 hours later I’m lunging at nice couples out for their evening stroll.

SCUSEMEWHERECANIGETHEX11BUS?? Oh. Right there. Danke.

Berlin is loose. Berlin is cool.

My host has a map marked with the city’s best spots for midnight tango.

A girl in front of me is wearing tailored trousers and sunglasses. On the SUBWAY.

I’m so terrified of coming across as an ungrateful guest I am hyper-polite to everyone I meet.

I give a old woman with a clipboard 2 Euro for deaf children that almost certainly do not exist.

Asking about the WiFi is unbearable.

Craning my neck to spot a gourmet menu in Kreuzberg, a man with a Carribean accent asks if I need “any help”. “All good mate, thanks!”

I make a note about the hospitality of strangers.

Later I realise.

help = drugs