Monday, 10 December 2007

• How I Triggered A Bomb Alert In Berlin

  This is a real-life event which took place on Saturday, December 8th 2007, in the German capital of Berlin.

  I had checked out of the hostel I was staying in, the Jetpak City Hostel, a highly recommended place to stay in if you're visiting Berlin on a budget.

  I had with me my backpack and a small luggage, the kind with wheels and a handle for you to pull it along.

  I'd spent the morning taking pictures of the Bundeskanzleramt, or the Chancellor's office, in the heart of Berlin. At approximately 10:45 AM, I boarded a bus heading to Potzdamer Platz, or Potzdam Square, one of Berlin's most modern commercial areas.

  The ride was short and about 10 minutes later, I alighted from the bus and headed for a Deutsche Bank branch nearby to withdraw some ca$h. After pocketing my money, I turned around and reached out to grab my luggage's handle.

  Nothing.

  The frickin luggage wasn't there!!!

  

  @#$%^&*!   ( <--- note: it's easy to do this, just slide your finger along the number keys on your keyboard while you hold down the 'SHIFT' button. Lol...)

  I immediately realized that I'd left the dam* luggage on the dam* bus! I'm not prone to panicking, but I can tell you that I really ran back to the busstop really really fast, but of course, the dam* bus was gone.

  So I called the number on the busstop.

  "Hello, I'd like to report a case of Real Stupidity please," I said.

  

  Actually, I reported the missing luggage and the guy promised to call me back.

  Meanwhile, Keong's small luggage was travelling on an M41 bus headed towards Hermann Platz (Hermann Square), south east of Potzdam Square. It was on the floor, wedged between a seat and a divider. Nobody had noticed it, yet...

  After 10 minutes, during which I paced impatiently in the freezing cold in front of Potzdam Square, ignoring the cheery Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) across the road, the bus company guy called me back on my phone.

  "Hello, Stupid, we might have found your bag," he said.

  Well, sort of. He didn't literally say 'stupid'.  But I was feeling that way.

  So I described the bag to him in detail (it was black, about 60 cm tall and had a couple of locks hanging on the zippers).

  "Yup," he said. "I think that's it."

  Maaaaaan, was I relieved. Then he said:

  "We'll call you back shortly."

  Meanwhile, the luggage had been noticed by a passenger on the M41, who alerted the bus driver.

  After a long wait, I called the bus company again.

  "Where the hell is my cure for stupidity?!" I yelled at the guy.

  Actually, I just inquired about my luggage.

  "Oh, it's you again," he said. "Please hang up. The POLICE will be calling you in a moment."

  Needless to say, I was FRICKIN surprised.

  I was even more surprised when the POLICE actually phoned my moments later.

  "Hello, are you the bloody luggage idiot?" inquired a voice.

  Ok, he was much more polite than that.

  "Yes," I told him.

  "Well, did you know that we thought your luggage was a bomb?"

  Great. Greatgreatgreatgreatgreat.

  Anyway, he told me that a police car would be along soon to pick me up and drive me to the bus.

  Why can't they just bring the dam* bag to me, I wondered.

  So I waited, glaring at the happy Chrismas Market with growing resentment. Still, I was glad the bag had been found. Currently, only half an hour had passed since I lost it, and they'd already located it in this city of 3.5 million.

  Suddenly, a cop car with wailing sirens appeared and stopped outside the Christmas market.

  Fantastic, I thought. My ride. Hundreds of Germans are gonna see me climb into the screaming police car.....

  So I approached the car and the policeman wound down his window.

  "Are you the Bloody Stupid Retard?" he asked.

  Well, not in those words exactly.

  "Yes," I said. So I got in and they whisked me away like a criminal.

  

  We were directed via police radio to head for Blherstra絽 (Bluecher Street). When we got there, we didn't see anything.

  We drove further on and arrived at Urbanstra絽 (Urban Street). There was an M41 bus like the one I lost my luggage in, parked at the roadside, filled with passengers.

  "Not this one," the policeman-driver shook his head. He drove further, past a few more M41s parked on the roadside. I had a strange feeling inside. What were all these busses doing sitting around, filled with people?

  Up ahead, I saw a number of flashing police cars, strewn about the road. Beyond that, there was a looong police-tape stretched across the wide 4-lane street. The street was deathly deserted, the shops lining both sides of the street were all shut.

  And about 200 metres beyond the police-tape, in the middle of the street, sat an M41 bus, abandoned.

  

  .............

  A few hundred metres beyond the bus were more police cars, and another police line blocking off the road from the other end.

  "This is it," said the policeman-driver.

  After the M41 driver was notified of the luggage, he stopped the bus on Urban Street and evacuated all the passengers. Then he called the police. When they arrived and saw the freaky, black bag with the shiny locks, they shut down the street, the entire M41 bus route and all the stores along urban Street, including a Karstadt departmental store. Several teams of cops were deployed immediately to deal with the 'bomb threat'. A bomb-squad was called in. But of course, before anything else could happen, Keong called the bus company which called all the M41 bus drivers and the police soon found out about the case of a bloody tourist missing his bag.

  
  The red line marks the area police roped off. The blue spot marks the location of the M41 bus.

  But of course, things weren't that simple. The highest ranking cop in the scene came up to me and told me:

  "This might be your missing bag, or it may not be. If it isn't your bag, it could be a bomb. If that's the case, you and I could die if we enter the bus."

  Great melodramatic crap. I left my luggage on an M41 bus and 15 minutes later a terrorist coincidentally plants a suitcase bomb on an M41 bus. What are the chances of that??

  Anyway, they made me describe the bag to the 1st cop who was on the scene, because apparently, noone else had dared enter the bus since then. I managed to convince him that it was probably mine.

  "I had no idea it'd become such a big deal," I commented.

  "In Berlin, it IS a big deal," he declared solemnly.

  After that, they ran a BACKGROUND check on me! And after much discussion, the top guy, the 1st police man on the scene and I approached the bus. All the other cops stayed back and watched.

  A few metres from the bus, the top guy pulled out his walkie-talkie dramatically and mumbled:

  "This is the final report before entering the bus...."

  

  Yeah yeah blah blah. Lol this is crazy!

  When I finally peered in through a window and saw my bloody miserable luggage sitting on the floor, exactly where I'd left it, I announced:

  "Yup, that's mine."

  They went in, rumaged thru the bag, questioned me about the contents, then finally said:

  "Alrite, you can have it."

  Finally.

  They then proceeded to lift the blockade of the street and the shops were allowed to reopen.

  One of the cops, deciding that some humour was needed, told me that "You're gonna receive a bill of 50,000 Euros soon." Hahaha.

  Anyway, I grabbed my luggage, thanked the policemen for the fun fun afternoon and walked round the corner where I caught the next metro train for the city center. What a memorable trip, eh? How many of you can boast about setting off bomb alerts?

  

  Next: pictures of Berlin!

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