Aachen, Germany

I’d done well with my selection of hostel last night. It was a modern YHA-affiliated place just over the river in the Deutz area of Cologne, and once again I’d had a four-bed dorm all to myself, together with a plush en-suite bathroom – all for the price of a single dorm bed. Mustn’t grumble!

Up and out early, I pedalled back towards the river, catching Cologne’s Cathedral in a  far less terrifying pose, and crossed the bridge to board a train to the border town of Aachen, which would be my last stop in Germany for this leg of the journey.

I located the YHA and checked in, but – shock horror! – when I reached the dorm, I found that unlike the previous few nights, I wouldn’t have it all to myself. Someone’s bag was propped up against a locker. I went through the usual motions of picking a bed (lower bunk, near radiator!), made the bed with the clean sheets that had been placed in a pile on it, as is the norm in a YHA, stuffed my things in a locker and set out again to check out the town.

Aachen was an attractive place with a relaxing, almost medieval air, with clean, cobbled streets and little shops that sold gingerbread – or Printen as it is called – to unsuspecting tourists like me. The town planners seemed to be very keen on fountains; to the general distress of my bladder, you were never very far from the sound of running water. I soon learned that Aachen was a Roman spa town in the same vein as Bath, the city I had started my overland journey in over a month ago now.

Returning to the hostel later that afternoon, I entered my dorm again – and stopped dead in my tracks. On my pillowcase lay a well-thumbed book. A jumper was draped across my duvet. Two skanky-looking sandals were under the bed, next to the bag that was previously propped up against the locker.

Some f**ker had scalped my bed!

I could imagine how it had happened. The person had come back to see a bed made up and had assumed the staff had done it for them, I guess – unheard of for a youth hostel, but perhaps the person wasn’t familiar with hostels. My stuff was safely in a locker, and the only indication that I had previously been in the room was the hefty padlock on my locker, which the person must have overlooked.

Either that or I was dealing with the type of chancer that gets up early to claim a sunbed with their towel.

Whatever the case, appeasement wasn’t an option. I was buggered if I was going to fight with a duvet cover again and make up a new bed for myself, so I carefully placed the sandals and the bag under the next bed along, with the book laid purposefully on the folded pile of sheets on that bed. The person would come back and realise their mistake, and make up their own bed.

In the meantime, I chipped out for another reccie around Aachen, on foot this time, and looking for some food other than hearty German stodge for a change, I chanced upon a Vietnamese restaurant for a great bowl of pho and a few imported 555 beers for a change as I spent a good hour or so on my diary.

Wandering back to the hostel later that evening, I expected to meet my dormmate. But there was no-one there. He hadn’t come back yet; the items I had carefully placed on the next bed were undisturbed.

Bugger.

He’ll work it out, I thought, as I put my head down for the night.

The next thing I remember is waking to find someone stinking of booze and fags standing directly over me and shouting at me in German that I was in their bed. Not the nicest way to come out of the Land of Slumber.

Having just been abruptly woken up, I wasn’t at my most coherent in German – nor was I in the best of moods.

“No, it’s my bed”, was all I could manage back in Deutsch at first, before adding, in a more polite and explanatory fashion, “I was here earlier this morning, and I made this bed myself. I’m an English tourist here on holiday”.

“You’re not English!”
“Am so!” Losing patience.
“You’re lying, you’re not English!”

“I F**KING WELL AM!” I fumed, in English this time – at least, as much as someone like me can fume, which is to say very little. He was taken aback, and retreated to where his things were on the other bed to huffily make his bed.

I turned over, intent on getting back to sleep as soon as possible, with a view to getting up extra early and making lots of noise to return the favour of a rude awakening.