“What’s that feeling called.”

“Which one?”

“Oh, you know. When you’re up someplace high, and you want to jump for no good reason.”

A flash of understanding.

“Or like when you’re standing on a sidewalk and get that urge to step out into oncoming traffic?”

“Yeah. That’s the one.”

“Can’t remember.”

“I know there’s a word for it. Call of the – something.”

“Call of the abyss!”

“That’s the one.”

We were looking down over the edge of a bridge in the old warehouse district in Hamburg, Germany. The three of us together represented three different nationalities – Denmark, Finland, and the United States. We’d met in a twelve-person dorm at the youth hostel. It went like this:

“Where you from?”

“New York.”

“Nice city.”

“Actually I’m not – well, yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“Big.”

“Yeah. Where you from?”

“Denmark. ‘s beautiful there. What brings you here?”

“I-was-studying-and-I-needed-a-break.”

“That’s fair. What were you studying?”

“Math.”

“Come again?”

“Mathematics. I loved it, but I felt tired.”

“I don’t blame you. I never got the hang of numbers.”

We talked about gap years and the United States education system. (She asked.) The woman from Denmark dressed in black, and liked blues music, and, recently, photographing insects. She and another woman from Finland were going to look at cathedrals, and would I like to join them? Everyone else was going on a walking tour.

“Never liked walking tours,” she said. “I’m a bit independent. I like to do things in my own time.”

And so we went.

The warehouse district in Hamburg is made up of old brick buildings built along a canal system, designed for the transportation and storage of goods. Some of them still serve their original purpose, housing spices and carpets and coffee from around the world. Hamburg is a harbor city.

The space itself isn’t pretty in the way that cathedrals are pretty. It’s beautiful, in the way that only brick walls and intricate masonry and bridges over dull brown water under a grey sky can be.

We found a set of old stone steps along the side of the canal, covered in muck and slime and algae, that allowed access down to the water’s edge. Murky water lapped at the bottom steps. The stairs were sealed off from the rest of the word by a single chain between two posts.

Denmark caught me staring, looked around to make sure no one was looking, and unclipped the chain.

“You know you want to.”

And I did.

I did not slip and fall. The steps were narrow, there was no railing between the water and me. The stairs went down further than I’d expected – the last few steps of the staircase were underwater. It was quieter down there. Surreal.

Denmark smiled down at me.

I shook my head, and grinned, and made my way back up into the world.

Denmark had to leave to catch a train – she was meeting up with a friend that she met in a video game. Finland and I exchanged numbers and parted ways. We’d planned to meet up later to go on a boat tour at night – but I got lost, and my phone died, and I almost crashed an electric scooter trying to find my way to the docks, and I accidentally got on the wrong boat, and by the time I got back to the hostel that night I was soaked through with rain and cold and grinning like an idiot because there was good news from home that night and I’d finally figured out how bus schedules worked.

That was the hostel that I walked to at four in the morning, because I’d taken an overnight bus from Holland…

On my second night there, a backpacker from Canada made cookies, despite the lack of measuring spoons in the hostel kitchen. She just kind of improvised, and they came out sweet and warm and exactly what I needed in that moment. I was sitting nearest at the table when she brought them out.

“Would you like a cookie?

Everyone in the room flocked to them, the way that seagulls converge on a scrap of bread in a parking lot.

We sat at that table, and we started asking each other questions. “Where you from? What brings you here?” It went on like that. There were people from all over the place. Finland and Denmark were there, plus Ukraine, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, Canada. The states. Hi, hello, that’s me. Amsterdam had checked in after hours and was trying to get away with staying there for free by sleeping in the loft. His dream is to start a business that will make the world better, but he doesn’t know what it will be yet.

The next night, the whole lot of us sat barefoot on the floor and talked. About the boarders between countries, and shadows, and the luck of the Irish, and marriage, and drugs, and ghosts, and on and on until 2AM when the last of us went to sleep…

I remember trying to explain to a room full of people why some infinities are bigger than other infinities. They listened. Canada got it, for a moment. I could feel it – her breathing changed. And then we both lost it again.

Hamburg was the first city I ever navigated on my own. I found my way there, I found a place to sleep, I found food, I found people, and memories, and beautiful things to do and see and explore. I did all of those things by myself, but I also wasn’t alone, and I will remember…