Day 5: Ticket to Bimbotown /// "Booked you on a flight to Leipzig, you won’t regret it. Nick” "Sorry - WHAT?” The confirmation came into my inbox: 5pm flight from Stansted to Leipzig. With only a folk dancing event at work and game for an adventure we dutifully packed bags, turned up to Stansted and boarded the flight. “There are two women on board who will tell you where your going. Nick” .
We settled in, an empty blue pleather seat between us. . “I guess we just go with it for now.” We touched down in Germany furtively looking round the plane. Two women approached us. “Are you here for the closing ceremony?” . The taxi smelt of air freshener as the concrete sans serif german roads sped by. We were dropped at the hotel by a woman who we deduced was the girlfriend of the man who owned a warehouse out here and tonight there was a big party. They went up to their rooms and we ventured out.
The warehouse was obvious, a thudding ex-Tram Depot. A cloud of cigarette smoke and a cavernous set of rooms filled by german clad in alpine wear. We walked through a cage of hydraulically swinging fists as a sofa and TV set up, like the opening of The Simpsons, drove past us with a bemused looking family driving it. We sought out the bar walking past a cabaret act where a man hung from meat hooks attached to his tongue. The bar sold beers for a euro and was flanked by a glass vestibule filled with three bathtubs with sets of german boys, naked, in each of them. We sat on the periphery watching the absurd spectacle before being approached to model for a life class in a canvas tent. The rest of the evening was a blur: half way between a dream and reality; buttons causing chairs to explode; being chased by monsters made of tyres; a ghost train followed by a man with a chainsaw.
I woke up on a blue coarse carpet in the bin room of the hotel vague memory of throwing up on train tracks, being picked up by an obese man offering me his bed, being chased by skinheads, peering into a basement hardcore club as a band thrashed on stage and the lead singer, topless, matted hair skicking to his tattooed body stared me directly in the eyes.
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