Berlin Beach Camp 07
I had been a member of HC (hospitalityclub.org) for almost about a year, but I had just hosted only one guest and never stayed with members before. But I had started getting the idea of these hospitality networks. Being an Erasmus student, getting to know lots of people from different cultures had helped a lot. Finally, my big mentour, Martin gave me the news about Berlin Beach Camp (24-28 May 2007). I had never stayed in a camp before neither. I thought that was my chance and decided to give it a shot. We had holidays for most of that time, so the college was not a problem. We just had to figure out how we were going to get there. The camp was in Berlin, meaning 1100km. away from where we were staying. Yeah, about a week before the camp, I even ordered a sleeping bag from Amazon for the camp. The transportation was really the only problem.
There was one more thing that I had never done before, and in my Erasmus experience, I had to live it somehow. That was of course HH (hitch-hiking). This was the perfect opportunity. I had a chat with Martin and told him about what I had in my mind. He had lots of HH experiences in Europe and in South America, in lots of different countries. So he clearly was the man. I convinced him (with a quick, successful and painless operation).
On 24th May, in the morning about 7 am, we met for the big adventure. As I wrote before in my HH post, we had a total of 13 rides to get to Berlin and it took us more than one day, (this time not that painless, I have to say) Anyway we got to the camp on 25th May around 2 pm. Martin had also the tent with him, and he just set it up in like 6, 7 minutes.
We grabbed something to eat and starting getting to know the people. Martin was really an experienced member. He had been to some camps before and he already knew some of the people there. There was a supermarket nearby, (20 min. on foot), we went there to get something to eat and of course to drink.
There was live music and then a movie show and then again live music in the building, indoors. And outside we had kinda camp fires and lots of people could sit around and have nice chats. Some were playing guitars, some were playing drums… Even though they were from lots of different countries, they always found something in common to play and to share with…
It didn’t take long for me to meet some Turkish guys. I was not sure whether some Turkish people were coming, but I finally found that out. There were 6 other Turkish guys, 5 were Erasmus and 1 was a full-time masters student. We got along nice and had some nice chats…
The 2nd day, we had the Free Hugs planned out. We were around 80 people willing to hug anyone for free. Maybe that was the record for the Free Hugs event. I did my first Free Hugs event in Freiburg with another 10 or so friends. People were trying to get what we are doing, but some were already familiar with the concept. That time it was huge. We spend a couple of hours and then met again in the Alexander Square under the tower for our museum tour.
We had a really nice and lovable French-Canadian, as she was calling herself tour guide. She knew what she was talking about. We walked around and learnt some interesting facts about the history of Berlin and also about the buildings and museums. While we were getting almost to the end of the tour, we had no idea there was a surprise waiting right around the corner.
Well, it was the storming rain of course. Anyone of us had any jackets or umbrellas of course. Because it was really shiny all day and probably all week long. Anyway, we really got soaked out. We waited in some kind of a shopping mall, trying to get dry and before being able to do some other stuff, we had to return to the camp for that day.
That night, we again had live music, movies and an additional presentation. A Lithunaian guy gave that presentation, about the travels, trips he made in Africa. He almost has been to half of Africa and had lots of funny, sometimes scary moments, experiences. That was a sincere presentation, so we could learn the real life and his real thoughts about the continent, the people and the local governments.
Uupps, I forgot to tell something. Before we left for the city center, I tried swimming in the lake for the first time of my life. It was not that clean, I didn’t have my goggles and everything, but I could manage to survive. For German people it might be understandable to swim in a lake, but for us, for the Mediterrenean people it was really something that we were not use to. However, I also tried that one…
On Sunday, there was the Carnival of Cultures, with not being absolutely sure, there were more than 50 cultures I guess. All of them with their own music, dances and so on. That time it also started to rain cats & dogs. It was kinda interesting to see lots of cultures together but also with friends from different cultures.
Especially that night we really stayed up late, till 6 am or so. We were in Berlin and it was end of May, meaning there was almost to night. The sunset was around 10.30 pm and the sunrise about 04, 04.30 am. Must be exhausting. Waiting till 10, 11 pm to go out. And if it were on weekdays, it would be almost impossible, because then you just would be able to stay out just 1 hour or so…
Monday was the day for departure. Everybody was packing and cleaning, saying goodbyes to new-met-friends, exchanging phone numbers, email addresses. After having so much intense fun, definetly sad, whenyou think how lame your next days are going to be like. However, as a final word, it was great, from the beginning till the end. Thanks people!!!
Buyruk Alparslan - September 2007 - Balıkesir / Turkey
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You write very well.