Sleeping with Germans

One spring night in Stockholm, I find myself sleeping with two Germans, neither of whom I fancy very much. We are in a little cabin in a boat-house. Above me sleeps a Japanese girl who has one of those thick Europe guidebooks, and is thinking of going to Istanbul as well. Across, in the other bunkbed, are the couple from Düsseldorf.

When I arrived at the boat, I went to check the sanitary facilities.

The 'bathroom' is full of young women who are applying various stuffs to their faces and hands. I check out the loo and then think better about it- resolved to sleep on a full bladder. I wash my face, joining the other girls by the mirror. Before I know it, I am in conversation with one of them, who has a thick German accent. I hold back the information that I am studying in Germany as long as I can, but then it comes out. And when that comes out, of course, my German woes follow suit. Like all her compatriots she looks amazed that I am not having a good time in Germany. I decide not to give her the Germans are such unfeeling b******* banter, and tell her that my problems lie with the language. I tell her I had difficulties in the first few months because noone was willing to speak English to me. She is perplexed. "I never miss an oppurtunity to practice my English", she says to me. It is late in the evening and there is no sense in trying to explain to her that my English presents not an oppurtunity for practice but cause for alarm in Germany.
It turns out we're in the same 'room'. We go in, start to change into night clothes. Then a key turns in the door and in comes a male of the species. It is now my turn to be perplexed. I tell him that this is the ladies' quarter. I had thought myself clever to have found a hostel that does make such distinctions. Then the German girl comes to my side and says that he is her friend, and that she trusts that it won't be a problem?
It's a problem alright. I am on this boat secure in the knowledge that I am not crossing the boundaries I have set up for myself, boundaries that I have been defending relentlessly lately, boundaries that have given others cause for concern and contempt.
"I will be very quiet, you won't notice I'm here" he says very sweetly. The human element. He does look totally harmless. But I am still confused as to how he could be in the ladies quarter, I feel cheated. I could take the issue up with the management if it came to that. Then the German girl explains, she has put down her name for two people, they must have thought the other was also a girl. Some part of me is enraged. (why, why then bother with calling this the ladies quarter, and why not book a room in the mixed section, why why why) The audacity to think that the world will just oblige with the way you see things... of course he is harmless, I can see that, but there has been a covenant, I came here on the grounds that........

But I know perfectly well why this is happening to me. Like I knew perfectly well why last night, for the first time in my life a guy came up to me and asked me to dance with him. Some jolly folk dance, of course, but I know, I know. It's because I came to Stockholm to run away from things, feeling so righteous about the values I had been preaching, the segragation of the sexes, fidelity...

The German girl, maybe, understands the extent of her blunder and tries to normalize things. Tells the guy that I study in Heidelberg. As we all lay in our beds, we sing praises to the town's beautiful hills and then wish each other goodnight. Michael falls into sleep pretty fast and starts to snore just a little. The girl calls out his name. He turns to his side and stops snoring. I am in bed, in my little kerchief round my head. I sleep well despite the full bladder, the river rocking me into wierd dreams. I get up earlier than anyone else for the conference's morning session, pay for the room and leave.