It’s about 2am and Berlin’s Alexanderplatz is reducing to a hum as pop-up bars roll down their shutters and small wobbling groups get smaller and more wobbly. A Christmas stocking-filler from 2000 and something, packed as a secret weapon for a night in peril, lies dormant at the bottom of my suitcase. Exhausted and weary from our first full day on our mini inter-rail trail, my fellow travellers are dropping like flies. But not I.
It’s around 2am and we’re back in the hostel room. Britney, our Trump-loving American roomie, is giving us daggers as we paw for pyjamas. I’m standing in the doorway, more alert than I’d been all day, racking my brains for an idea. In a twist of fate it comes to me. Zips unzip, clothes fly. I raise the key to the night’s resuscitation to the heavens in true Rafiki-Simba fashion.
It's around 2am and my fellow night-owl, Anna, and I are walking through the streets of Berlin scoping out the perfect spot. She's wearing a gold raincoat and I'm donning a Juicy Couture number plucked from the floor, hoping it's not Britney's. Berlin cathedral as a backdrop, we finally settle for a cobbled path under the spotlight of a single streetlamp.
It’s around 2am and the stocking-filler is snapped open. “Let the games begin”, Anna says with a mischievous grin. The portable three-inch square with its built-in spinner holds 16 coloured dots which we place carefully on the cobbles, spaced to perfection.
It’s around 2am and Marte is our first biter. A Turkish student studying German, Marte has never heard of Twister but yes he will play. Right hand blue and left hand on the spinner, I simultaneously call out commands with increasing difficulty the more complex my position is.
Marte is a serious lad. Just as we’re getting acquainted with each other’s limbs and bottoms we welcome some more players to the charade. Anna, Marte, meet Geeske and Tina of Saxony.
It’s definitely not 2am anymore and Geeske and Tina are in a pickle. Bottoms up, legs spread and arms entwined, they are in real physical pain. I’ve taken on the role of spinner operator.
Marte is getting frustrated because in the effort to roll my r’s I’ve placed an unwelcome vowel at the end of his name. He is now Martha. “You guys are so crazy”, Geeske explodes, unleashing her suppressed laughter as she tumbles, crushing Marte’s arm.
It’s past 3am now and the dots are carefully returned to their case. A quick selfie, some emotional hugs and we say Auf Wiedersehen to Geeske and Tina of Saxony. “Same time tomorrow?” Marte asks. Marte doesn’t joke.
We break the news that we’re heading to Prague the next morning and the sound of his heart breaking is audible.
It’s almost dawn and we say goodbye to our Turkish delight. He walks into the night, a three-inch red dot stuck to his bottom.
