Germany's Most Wanted

The first night I was in Tübingen I stayed in a youth hostel since I arrived too late to move stuff into my Wohnheim (sorta like a cross between a dorm and an apartment). I was actually pretty excited about the prospect since I had spent my first few nights in Germany in a hostel in Frankfurt and had a really good time. A big part of that was because Andrew met me there and it was good to see him since it had been a while since we'd hung out, but on top of that it seemed like the hostel crowd was generally very friendly and up for having a good time. The only downside of the stay in Frankfurt was that some random sketchy guys stole cameras and cell phones from some people we met there, which had me a bit on edge. But I figured that Tübingen was this little town and the people in the hostel would probably be mostly other students like me and hence at least somewhat trustworthy.

I checked into the hostel a rather late (I think maybe around 7pm) and was a bit tired since I had been on the train all day. I figured I would go to my room, greet my roommates, have a beer with them and call it a night. After getting my key I walked cheerfully up the stairs and opened the door to my room, expecting to see it full of a bunch of new, international students making plans for the evening.

What I saw instead was one random, weird guy sitting alone in the dark screaming into a cell phone in German. The smell of cologne and hair mousse hung thickly in the air. Mind mind couldn't process the situation; why were there no cute French girls in this hostel like there were in Frankfurt? Where were all the other people? Why was the light off? And most important, who on earth would use toiletries that smell like this?

The guy immediately ceased his conversation upon seeing me, looked at me rather intently and started speaking to me in German. Now I realize that my German is quite flawed and was even worse then, but I think this guy would have been hard to understand even if I was a native speaker. Imagine a brand new, fresh-off-the-boat immigrant who comes to the States not knowing English so well running into Steve Buscemi's character from Fargo his first week and you'll have a pretty good idea of what I was dealing with. It took a good couple minutes for him to communicate his point (he wanted to know how many people were with me) and it didn't help that every time I didn't understand what he was saying, he would just say it louder, faster and embellished with a few German obscenities. Definitely not who I was looking for.

As the evening progressed, two more people came to the room: a German guy who thankfully spoke English (helping to ease the tension between me and the first guy in the room, who spoke no English) and an Italian guy, Pierro, who knew English, but no German and was also a student. We made some random conversation and I explained my situation. The guy who was first in the room, who we'll call Steve, seemed to be very interested in my living situation here. He asked me how much my rent was. I thought it was a weird question, but I told him anyway.

"That's a pity," he responded after I told him. "You must have had to bring the whole first month's rent with you in cash."

Now at this point I'm very suspicious of this guy. I didn't have the first month's rent with me in cash (I had to wire transfer it), but I did have money for the deposit with me, my passport and a whole host of other things (computer, ipod, camera, etc) that I wasn't interested in parting company with. I slept with one night open that night and in the morning, checked my stuff to make sure everything was still there.

That morning I asked to use Steve's phone to call the housing people and see when I could move in. He responded by taking me to a million ATMs and trying to get me to do something that he couldn't quite communicate. I later found out that he was trying to get me to buy minutes for his phone, which you can do with a German bank card but not an American one (I didn't have a German bank account just yet). That was totally crap, since I just wanted to make a 30 second phone call and he was trying to get me to put a bunch of money on his phone (I think the least amount you can put on a phone at a time is 15 Euro). I told him I was going since I had stuff to take care of and just generally wanted to get away from him.

That night when I got all of my stuff safely to my Wohnheim, I felt a great since of relief that my good friend Steve hadn't managed to steal anything from me.

I didn't really think much about old Steve in the following weeks. Really the only thing I thought about was running into him on the street, which I absolutely dreaded. But time went on and there was no sign of the guy around town, thankfully.

Last night there was a big party for the beginning of the semester and I happened to run into Pierro. We talked a bit and I asked him the usual questions about class and everything else and at some point we started talking about ol' Steve. You see, Pierro stayed for a bit in the youth hostel since he didn't have his housing situation 100% figured out, so he got to know ol' Steve a bit better (although I suppose not that well since he doesn't speak any German). A day or two after I left, Steve vanished without a trace and not long after, the cops showed up at the hostel looking for him. I knew there was something about that guy I didn't trust!