With hindsight I can say that the biggest hardship of my first week was related to trying to get out of Berlin. I thought it would have been easier, but I was a bit naive, to be euphemistic. I just shut the door, packed my infamous 70 liter blue rucksack and went. Hit the road. I ended up in the local bus station (ZOB), asking some Russians if I could buy my visa for Russia at the border. A younger guy told me, they have to be applied for way in advance, and that I’d been a bit silly. The Belarusian visa would be an even larger problem. What he didn’t know however, was that Russia was just an option for me, my mind played with it, and I really had no hard time rejecting it.
So I walked around a bit, a truck driver suggested I go hitchhiking. That didn’t work out though, and I spent the night in the heated waiting-room on a row of plastic chairs that made my back sore and my mind numb. But – as usual – in the morning I discovered a bus to Gdansk, the city I had in mind, and I took it. It took a meaningful “kssst kssst” to make the bus driver let me on for 30 euros.
So I started, enjoyed finally getting out of Berlin, feeling free and all that stuff. On our way the bus halted a few times, goods were exchanged and an instant I was afraid of my bag – with a lot of writings in it – getting stolen. So I pretended getting some food out to check the bag was still there, since it is a blunt thing to openly show distrust. Of course the worries were groundless.
The roads got pretty bumpy and small, and the ride through the early evening Polish autumn scenery was really beautiful. Full moon was yet to come, but the romantic spooky atmosphere definitely could not be missed. The bus arrived at its destination on time.