The other night I went out to a couchsurfers gathering. (Tell you more about CS later.) I was told to go to Cross Club but I didn't know where it is so I met up with a friend and his surfers and we all went together.
It took quite a while to get there as it's on the opposite side of town in the industrial area... I think somewhere beyond pre-school number 2. Anyway, we got there and it was incredibly cool!! Overwhelming, actually. I have to go back, probably a few more times, and during the summer with a camera.
It's an old warehouse that's been converted in to a club. That's pretty standard. What's not is how they decorated. It's one giant piece of art. They've gone through salvage yards and taken gears and drives and pistons and cranks and who knows what else and in some places have welded them together to create arches and railings and in others have created this movable ceiling piece, or things sticking out of the walls. Truly impressive.
So the night was great. I got to meet a lot of people from all over the world and in general had a really good time. We stayed out past the metro close, which is to be expected, and had to figure out the night trams - my friend is quite familiar with the night trams as he uses them frequently and so we were, justifiably, reliant upon him.
We missed the tram so we took the night bus instead. And that's where things went wrong. Over here each stop has a name - and they come in pairs - one for each direction. That should make things simple. However, sometimes there will be more than one location in each direction that has the same name - maybe a stop around the corner or something - but never any place obvious, and always without indication as to where the corresponding stop is located.
Maybe you can see where this is headed...
We took the bus which dropped us at a different location than expected - right stop name, wrong stop.
And it was -10 and snowing. At 3.00 in the morning.
So he suggested we follow these people ahead of us down the stairs - we could see where we wanted to be - it was the tram stop down the embankment and across the park. Quite often there will be stairs that lead down to the lower streets. These stairs did not. Rather, these stairs led us under the freeway and we came up inside the main train station.
Which was closed as it was 3.00 in the morning. We, however, persevered. We knew that inside the train station is an outlet with stairs that would lead to where we wanted to be. So we searched for it, moving barriers, climbing down escalators that had been shut down for the night, and in general just wandering through areas that were probably technically off limits.
At one point in time we rounded a corner and were faced with a large group of people lugging suitcases. Someone said - oh my god, they look like zombies! And they really did. Blank faces, void of emotion, wide eyes, drudging lumbering steps that involved whole body movement... I truly felt as though I were in a zombie movie. And then it became apparent that they too were locked inside the train station and were wandering in circles - shaking doors, hoping the next would yield, offering freedom and salvation.... it wasn't to be. Each door was locked, we couldn't find where we came in from, and the cleaning crew refused to set us free - telling us to wait another hour for the station to open. It was freezing outside - literally, it was snowing - but just as cold inside... no warmth to be found.
It was time to face facts. We had gotten lost. And ended up locked inside the maze of the main train station. Yet we managed to find a way... To escape that unheated hell we had to go through a temporary wall of a construction zone and then we found ourselves on an on-ramp for the freeway. From there we had to scale a wall (covered in snow), climb down an embankment (covered in snow), cross a road, trek through a park, and then we arrived at the correct tram station - while it was snowing snowing.
The big manly men had managed to get over the wall without getting soaked. I, on the other hand, had brushed my bum against the top of the wall and my pants had gotten wet. In the time it took to get down the embankment my pants had frozen. The entire walk to the station my pants were hard and crackly. I was trying to walk and stay warm while pulling my pants away from my body as the icicles forming were not contributing to my physical well being (I still have that bloody cold, and yes, I know, I probably should have been home in bed but a full month of being sick is more than enough time to dedicate to it!)
To wrap up here - we got the tram, got off at the right stop, and made our way back to the flat, and from there I called a nice warm taxi to come pick me up and take me home.
While I can definitely pass on the frozen pants (I don't know if any of you have had the chance to literally freeze your ass off) and I need to gain a stronger grasp on the night transit system, all and all in was a good night. One that is sure to be repeated under somewhat warmer circumstances.
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