Imagine for me a flight of stairs. Wooden - the colour of mahogany, but undoubtedly something much cheaper. The walls are a buttery yellow. There is a runner down the centre of the stairs. Burnt sienna. Mitch and Lucy walk ahead; Dan and Siân follow behind. Our room is on the third floor, and we have already walked down two and a half flights of stairs without incident. But there it is, on the horizon... That fateful step... The Last Stair.
Lucy and Mitch cross it, blessed by the gods. Dan is not so lucky. Something happens - he isn't concentrating, arrogant in his ability to walk down stairs. Perhaps he misses a stair. Perhaps he thinks there is an extra stair. Whatever happens, he goes one way, and his ankle goes another.
"It was like something in a film," recalls Siân Collins, 18, sole eyewitness to the accident. "For a split second, it was comical - his hair did a sassy flick, and he floated. Then suddenly it wasn't funny any more."
Dan lay on the ground, moaning and cussing. Lucy and Mitch came back, and a herd of receptionists stampeded towards the scene. For a long time, Dan didn't get up.
"I was all ready to laugh at him for being on the floor, but when he didn't get up, I realised it was serious," says Lucy Morris, student.
Images of A&E and flights home flashed before Siân' s eyes, and (mortifyingly) she almost fainted.
After a short eternity, Dan got up, claiming he felt better, and hobbled to the hostel living room. Mitch, Lucy and Siân continued the journey to the supermarket for food, returning to instruct Dan to put ice back on his ankle.
Having sat for a while, Dan came to the realisation that he wouldn't be able to walk on this foot, and the decision was made to take him to a doctor.
"It wasn't until this point that I realised it was serious," admits resident German speaker Mitchell Darbon.
A-Level German does not prepare one for the reality of an orthopaedic specialist's waiting room, and although he can fluently and accurately discuss the integration of Turkish immigrants into German society, Mitch struggled to explain to one that Dan had fallen from a stair and had a suspected sprained ankle.
An arduous two hours followed, and after meeting a lovely German doctor and visiting both a pharmacy and a shop for orthopaedic devices, Dan emerged on crutches, bandaged foot in a support brace, brandishing a box of pills.
All plans cancelled for the day, we returned to the hostel and remained there for the rest of the day. Lucy and Mitch went souvenir shopping, whilst Siân packed her things. Upon their return, all two-legged indivuals went to the supermarket, where they purchased bottled beer (and a soft drink for the teetotaller). At between 39 and 79 cents for a pint, they bought a range, plus pizza for tea, and back at the room they recreated a bar. We did a pub quiz with Siân as QM (Dan won) and we went to sleep.
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