Siste Reis Pub — Restaurant in Halden

(Written in English. Disable auto-translate for the bruise, not the bandage.)

I came here to drink, but I stayed to forget what I found.

We arrived at Siste Reis under a sky the color of old concrete and unresolved guilt, dragging a suitcase full of noise and nicotine withdrawal. My hands were already shaking, though I hadn’t touched a drop since Sarpsborg. Something in me knew this place would demand more than just my attention.

Siste Reis. The Last Journey. It doesn’t invite you in—it dares you. You don’t find this place. You end up here. Like a confession you didn't mean to say out loud.

Inside: low ceiling, thick air, lights dim enough to hide from yourself. A Telecaster screamed on stage, backed by a drummer who looked like he’d survived three divorces and a mild possession. Nobody spoke. Not because they couldn’t—but because speaking would’ve made the hallucination collapse.

The bartender poured a beer before I even opened my mouth. He stared at me like he’d seen my dreams. Not the good ones—the recurring ones with the hallway and the red door. Maybe he had. Maybe he collects them.

We sat in the back, at a table leaning slightly to the left, like it too had given up trying to stay upright. There was a man in the corner coughing like he’d swallowed a secret and it got stuck. The walls sweated memory. Not the kind you recall fondly—the kind you drink to forget.

The place smelled of rusted rails, deep regret, and burning chances. I loved it instantly.

At some point, a woman left laughing and crying at once. Nobody looked up. A man in a trench coat read poetry into his glass of pastis. The band slipped into some kind of instrumental doom-blues dirge, and I had the terrible realization that I had never truly been to Halden until now. Everything before had just been prologue.

I tried to write notes, but the paper absorbed too much of my silence. This place doesn’t want to be remembered. It wants to inhabit you.

Siste Reis isn’t a bar. It’s a crime scene. Of what? Of whatever's left after you stop pretending and start listening to the noises you’ve spent a lifetime drowning out.

Five stars. Because you don’t leave this place. It follows you. Like a strange laugh in an empty street at 3:17am, with cold rain on your neck and something you never got the chance to say.

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