Travel

Dialog im Dunkeln

Right now I am in my home-town of Hamburg, Germany for a couple of days. While I was at the BBC last week I talked with Guy, who recommended that I check out this strange exhibit/bar/restaurant in the Port. He didn't know what it was called, so I looked it up: Dialog im Dunkeln. I asked my friend Andre about it and he didn't want to go, but his Girlfriend had been wanting to go for quite some time. Turns out the wait to get in is down to about 5 days now (down from three months), but she finagled a way to get us in the door.

We went earlier today, not fully knowing what to expect while we were there. First we were led into a dark room by person who had limited sight. We were given canes (for navigation aids) and told to hang on to the hand rails -- for the short duration they existed. After the rails we were on our own and were greeted by our guide, who is blind.

He led us into the first room, pitch black of course, which was fixed up to be like a park. A fan with fresh air, chirping birds, a creek, a bench, trees and many other park like fixtures waited for us in this first room. We got to explore the room and find our way across the bridge as we adjusted to the dark with our canes.

In the next room we got to experience the "Speicherstadt" (warehouse city), which is ironically exactly where this exhibit was at. In this room we found small barrels of things you'd find in these warehouses: Spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves), unroasted coffee, barrels of rum and carpets. You could smell each one of these and generally go around exploring in this room -- with everything but your eyesight.

The next room was made up to be the inner city. Stores with windows, a fruitstand with actual real fruits that you could touch and smell, a street complete with street signs, a traffic light, two cars and two bicycles. At every step and turn the guide asked us to identify what we came across -- the fruits were easy and the cars were a convertible duck and a bug. (they picked easy cars that people would have no difficulty identifying)

Next up we walked across a ricketly bridge into the port proper where identified all sorts of marine stuffs on the walls: Ropes, sails, life jackets, life preservers, ships propellers, anchors.

Next we were all maneuvered into a tiny little boat on real water and we took a little "cruise". While we didn't leave the spot, the wind, sounds and splashing water effects gave a very real impression of moving on water. A passing boat even splashed us and made very real feeling waves. All the while our guide made lots of jokes about a blind person piloting a boat.

Thenwe were guided into a room with carpets and we enjoyed trippy music for a few minutes. Finally we entered the bar where two bartenders ran down the menu with their prices. Once we got our drinks we were ushered to a table were we sat and asked him loads of questions about being blind.

Normally you don't feel like asking a blind person stupid questions. But here we were on a level playing field (well, he had the upper hand, really) and could ask him all sorts of questions about what it means to be blind.

Needless to say, I learned all sorts of things about being blind. Including how blind people meet other people. We didn't meet our guide before we went into the darkness. We didn't know what he looked like, how tall he was or what kind of build he had. Claudia (my partner in crime) and myself had made a mental image of our guide based on our exeriences with him. Given his confidence, deep voice and firm and secure touch as he led us through the exhibit we both thought he would be at least 10cm taller and 20kg heavier than he really was when we came out into the light.

This was the most original thing I've done in quite some time (besides burning man, which is both original and not at the same time). I feel like I've gotten a better insight into what it means to be blind. At the same time I realize that this was as safe as a kindergarden and that the real world has a lot more rough edges. I didn't think that a cane could give me as much feedback about the world as it really did.

Time well spent -- now I feel like I am actually on vacation.

Greetings from Hamburg, Germany!

Posted by Mayhem at September 17, 2006 12:46 PM