Dialogue in the Dark

Ooook!

So we've seen the Reeperbahn, the Lake Alster and we've eaten German food. This next story is not special to Germany by any means, but it still happened in Hamburg. Sonja had been reading and reading about something called "Dialogue in the Dark" since before she even went to Australia and as she never got around to going to it, she saw my visit as the perfect excuse. Of what she'd told me, I had a very vague idea of what exactly we were going to get ourselves into, and I'm not sure if Sonja knew much more than me. Basically, what I was told is that you go to a building, and are taken into a set of rooms all in complete darkness. The idea of it is to show people what it's like to be blind.

We arrived about 30 minutes before we were due to start our little tour, and slowly and slowly, more and more people turned up and we waiting with us. A quick check and listen around the room made me discover that I, again, was the only person with no German speaking skills. This means it's always going to be fun. Finally, our group was called and it was our time to start. Walking into the first room, a lady stood at the front of the group and said "Who is the English speaker?". I raised my hand and she gave me a card with a list of pointers and things to and not to do. While I was reading, she explained everything I was reading to the group. If there ever was a chance to learn some more German, I guess that was it, but due to everyone speaking German, I thought I'd better concentrate on the things I wasn't supposed to do. I'd never want to get a German angry, they sound angry enough when they're just telling a joke.

So after the rules, we were given our walking canes and we were pushed through a curtain, where our eyes had to adjust to being in the darkness, and then we were put through a door where EVERYTHING was in complete darkness. I cannot being to express how dark this was. Sonja leaned over to me and said "Geoff...It's actually pitch black, I never though a room could be so black". And she was not wrong, there wasn't a flashing exit sign, a little speck of like a hole in the wall...NOTHING. It didn't take me long to start feeling claustrophobic, all my comfort was gone. Due to everyone speaking German around me, I even felt a little more on edge, but then came the reassuring voice of our guide who said "Ok, who is our English speaker, what is their name?". She was a lovely lady and had a really calm and comforting voice, exactly what you'd need in this situation. I introduced myself and she did the same. She said that I had to stick with Sonja through the ENTIRE 1 and a half hour session. I'd never felt so attached and reliant on Sonja in my life. If I lost her, it was all over for me as I was concerned.

Walking through the first room was easy enough, it was just to get a feeling for our cane and adjust to our current environment. After a while, I felt less claustrophobic and a little more adventurous. A couple times I would have my hands out, feeling the walls to see what I could find, and I would grab an arm, back or chest. Somehow a boob never managed to fall in my hands, but maybe that's a lucky thing, I wonder if a slap would hurt more in the dark?

After walking over cobblestones, through "markets" and streets, our guide found me again and put my hand on a box and said "Ok Geoff, in your country, what colour would this box be? Here it's yellow". It was a post box, and when I told her red, she said "Ok, I have no idea what red is, or yellow for that matter, I'm not completely blind, but colours don't exist, I just can see light and dark and even then, not much of that". It really made me think, that she had gone her whole life, and she was asking these questions, not even really knowing what I was answering.

Before long, we found ourselves in a room, and there was no English, everyone was speaking German and I had no idea where Sonja was, just as I was about to call out for her I heard something shut...Something like a door. When that happened, everything was silent. Everyone else had moved into the next room and had closed the door behind them. It didn't take long for me to start to panic, I had no idea where I was, or where anyone else was. My guide and Sonja were nowhere to be found so I started to knock on the wall. I frantically moved around the wall feeling for something, a handle, a door knob, anything! I couldn't find anything but I could finally hear voices through the wall, so I just tried to push on a section of wall, hoping at the same time to not destory something and by complete luck, it just happened to be the door. Thank God. This entire ordeal would have taken maybe 15 seconds, but it felt like half an hour. I could hear Sonja looking for me and I pretty much ran to her and held on for dear life.

At the start, we were given a ticket and were told to NOT lose it because this was our ticket for the boat. We stepped onto the boat and had to give our ticket to the boat person, our guide. We sat on the boat and it started rocking. Again, I can't really express what it was like, but when you can't see everything rocking along with your motions...It's a completely different feeling, especially when the boat 'hit' something unexpectingly. Pretty much the whole time everyone was on edge, because if the boat veered quickly one way, you would almost fall off your seat.

Stepping off the boat, we filed into a room where we sat on the floor. Still in complete darkness, our guide then played a few tunes. Listening to music like this was completely different too. Although not the sort of music I'm used to listening to, it was still an unreal and unforgettable experience. After spending about an hour in the dark already, all my other senses were on overdrive. I could hear what every instrument was doing, and the quality of each song, whether it was really much different at all, was pretty obvious to me. I picked up on the most slightest little glitches in each song, something I would probably never do when listening to a song normally.

Anyway, filing out of that room (Fiercly holding onto Sonja with a death grip), we made our way to the bar. While here we could buy chips, beer, soft drink...Whatever...But all still in the dark. We got ourselves a beer each and a packet of chips. Again, the senses were still in overdrive. I could sort of tell the coins apart, but didn't have enought to buy our stuff, so I had to pay by a note. I knew I had a 10 and a 50...I just had to give the right one. Our guide can easily tell which coin she's holding, even without any other coins to compare with, but to figure out notes, she had to measure them. When she gave my change back from a 10, I was really hoping I'd given her the right note.

We couldn't drink too much in the bar, firstly due to the fact that we didn't have time, but also because of if we got drunk...I think it would be near impossible to get us out when we were stumbling around completely sober. Just before leaving though our guide told us to guess how old and what she looked like. Sonja and myself agreed on a 20 something average height blonde girl, as did most of the group. Everyone was pretty shocked when she told us she was in her mid-40's though. She seemed to have a young voice and I was told that when she was speaking German, she was using popular slang that only young people would use. She was very good at the deceit game. We weren't allowed to see what she looked like though, her ruling was that she doesn't know what any of us look like, and she never will, so we're not allowed to see her. It was shredding me to peices though and I'm sure it was the same with everyone else, I just wanted to see her more than anything, as the picture in my mind had been completely blown into the sky.

As soon as we got out of the darkness, and made our way into the light, it was so much more comfortable, and for an hour I kept telling myself how thankful I was to be able to see. Life is about a million times easier. When we were signing the "visitors book" and I saw my awful and disgusting handwriting, I didn't really care, because at least I could still see what I was writing.

When we walked outside and made our way home, we had to walk past the back entrance and we heard a few voices and we turned around and saw her. I feel a bit bummed because we weren't supposed to see her and it ruined everything, but she just a little taller than my tummy, was definitely mid 40's and she had brown hair. She had the same voice and was sure enough wearing her sunnies. The imagine I constructed in my mind was most definitely destroyed.

The whole experience was AMAZING, and if anyone ever went to Hamburg, or anywhere else where they have the Dialogue in the Dark, I would highly recommend it. It was fun, terrifying, exhausting, informative...Everything!!

Next time, Sonja and myself make our way to Berlin to meet up with Lucy and Callum and then make our ways to the most famous beer festival in the world - The Munich Oktoberfest, popular for one litre beers, dirndls, lederhosen and drunken buffoonery.