A Daytrip to the Laundromat | Bailynn McNeely

After a week in Hamburg, we were preparing to continue to Berlin. Realizing that our hostel only had two washers and one dryer, four of us decided to make a trip to the local laundromat. After a 15-minute walk carrying our garage bags filled with clothing, we arrived. The sign read “Jimi’s Waschsalon – St. Pauli”, and sure enough, it was Jimi Hendricks themed. After checking out all the Jimi décor, we attempted to start a load. It didn’t take long for us to realize we had no idea how to use these washers. We decided to reach out to a couple that was starting their laundry also, but they did not know much English. After a lot of pointing and single word guesses we were finally able to start the washers.

Drying our clothes was a whole different story. Similar to the washer machine, we had to put euros in one machine and it would give us a coin to use the washer and dryer. However, each individual coin for the dryer was only 16 minutes worth of drying. Trying to stay ahead of the game and not have to sit in the laundromat for over an hour, all 4 of us put all 5 of our dryer coins in at once. We then went for a walk to grab some good American food, McDonalds. After returning, the dryers were no longer running. To our dismay, the clothes were not dry whatsoever. We then realized we had put the setting on airdry, so no heat was applied to our clothing, rookie mistake.

Waiting for our clothes to dry a second time, we were all talking and getting to know each other a little better. After about 30 minutes, a bridal party appeared out of nowhere. Bridal parties in Germany are a little different and require the bride to complete funny tasks. Lucky for us, her task was to get a group of girls to sing and dance with her. Sure enough, we agreed to have the women videos us singing “Wannabe” by the spice girls and dancing with the soon-to-be bride. Finally, our clothes were dry and we were on our way back to the hostel. It might have taken us 3 hours to do one load of laundry, but it is definitely a trip I will not forget.