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Sadie Adventures!
So one of the biggest things I have missed most about moving to Germany has been English accents. I find myself regulating my language to ensure others can understand me, and am in danger of losing some big words from my vocabulary. Also the English mentality (among my friends anyway) of being silly and giggly and childish just Would Not Be Stood For in Germany.
So, after a couple of chance encounters with a lovely English lady named Sadie in SilverFuture, the first at about 5am, and the second a couple of weeks later while she was meeting with her feminist friends; I secured her number. (My skills at getting the phone numbers of women have worsened recently - can't think why - ok, to be honest they were never all that...).
And last Wednesday, we Unleashed The English on Berlin for the first time.
First of all, some things about Sadie you need to know. She is lovely. She is from Nottingham. Her German is on a similar level to mine. She is capable of being fabulously silly.
So, on Wednesday I made my way to Sadie's. After a long walk to the top of the building were Sadie lives, I was greeted by the pleasant surprise of a second English girl, Anna, who was visiting Sadie. We started on the white wine.
We left the house, and passing by an Indian restaurant that does nice cocktails, we decided to go in there for a drink. I had a very tasty "Zombie". Pay attention because this location will play an important role in a later adventure!
We went to Sofia's next, a nice bar with rather unusual relief-painted walls, and a plastic horse sticking out of a sculpted mountain side. We decided to see whether it would be cheaper to buy 3 glasses of wine, or the whole bottle. Simple enough, you'd think. Not so. At first we got told, "No, happy hour is finished", then after finally managing to ask about the prices successfully, we were presented with three bottles of wine. Some quick and worried shrieks saved the situation, and we got a glass each. Though the prices we had been told didn't appear to be the prices we were charged. Ah well, apparently the ladies toilets were full of plants and gloriously 70s. So that makes up for it.
After that, we headed to our destination, getting some wine from the shop for the journey, of course! We were heading into Prenzlauerberg, the "trendy" bit of Berlin, which was a first for me. We were unsure of how to get there, and after disembarking the tram only to realise it was the wrong place, and having to launch ourselves back on Indiana Jones-style before the doors shut (OK the wine may have enhanced this memory in my brain!) a kind German lady explained to us where we were going and told us when to get off. The tram, that is.
So we finally arrived at Berlin Hilton (not the hotel, but that's the name of the night at a club called nbi!), and Sadie with her contacts got in for free - b****! We continued drinking, though the issue with the little white tokens really confused my drunken brain. We arrived in time to see the tail-end of the performance of a fabulous Japanese band called Apotheke, and we commenced the dancing. The rest of the night is much of a hazy blur, but I do remember making friends with a cool Japanese guy. There were lots of pretty boys there, though sadly many of them were native English speakers! Tsk!
I don't remember getting home, but I woke up in my bed with all my belongings intact (and loads of little white drinks-token thingies!). The hangover was hard work though!
And somewhere in there endeth the first night of craziness with Sadie. It was fab!
So fab, in fact, that we had to do it again sometime! With the sad news that Sadie is leaving Berlin for a few months in 4 weeks time, we arranged to meet up for lunch on Monday. With both of us being unemployed Englishers in Berlin, lunchtime meant 2pm. We had a lovely veggie meal then wandered to a coffee shop for coffee and cake to finish off the meal. So far, so good.
But then the fun began. Sadie outlined the tale of last Thursday, where she had returned to the Indian restaurant for a meal, only to be distracted by a pretty blonde man with a laptop. He appeared to be having some kind of meeting with one of the workers from the restaurant. Glances were exchanged and Sadie even said goodbye to him as she left the restaurant. It has all the makings of your classic Missed Connection story. Since Sadie had heard my story about a random encounter on the train, she asked me my advice, knowing full well what the answer would be. And so we made the fatal decision that we would return to the Indian Restaurant, and Sadie would give her number to the worker who was in the meeting with Fit Blonde Man, to pass along to him. What's the worst that could happen?
So after careful practising and re-practising of writing down her phone number and name, we came up with an acceptable scrap of paper with the relevant info on. And so we made our way to the Indian Restaurant. After a brief stop for a calming sit down and cigarette, we approached the restaurant slowly. As we got to the door, however, Sadie realised the man that had been talking to the Fit Blonde Man was not working. So we decided to return later. Unfortunately, during this time, the guy who was working there had strided (strode?) towards the door and then opened it right into our faces, asking in German, somewhat forcefully, if we would like to eat. Sadie shouted "Nie, nie!" (Never, never!) and we started laughing and ran away. Whoops.
After that ordeal, we went for a drink. Back to Sofia's, the place with the cool toilets from the previous Wednesday. However, they don't serve alcohol there til after 6pm, to avoid attracting the 'wrong sort of person' (can't think who they mean!). Still we chilled out for a bit, then went back to the Indian Restaurant. We had a cocktail each there (and free poppadoms!), to give us time to work Sadie's number into casual conversation. Our best lead was the guy who was working last Thursday when Sadie had been there and had spotted Fit Blonde Guy, though he wasn't the one who was talking to him. But after our cocktails, we went to pay and I prompted Sadie to begin. It soon became clear that explaining in English wasn't gonna work. So we attempted to explain in German. It was tricky. The story is hard enough to explain in English! With lots of "dein Kollege", "blonde Haare" and some "sehr schön"s, after 10 or so minutes, we had managed to successfully communicate nothing to three separate members of staff. Insulting as many of them as we could with our frantic efforts to ensure that no-one but the Fit Blonde Man got Sadie's coveted phone number. One guy even offered to dye his hair blonde for her. But eventually, we hoped, one of them got the gist, and took the number and promised to pass it on to his co-worker who would hopefully know who the Fit Blonde Man was. Sadie put a cigarette in his top pocket and patted it like a 2-bob w**** bribing a policeman for his troubles. And after that we went for a drink! Wine was needed, and a bar called The Fatty Corner seemed the perfect place to get it! Then a little later Sadie's phone rang!!! She was too scared to answer, so we had to remain in doubt as to whether our disastrous ploy had worked - though I'm proud to say she has since plucked up the courage to ring that number back; but not so proud to say that it was nothing to do with Fit Blonde Man or our Monday adventures.
Still, a bit of English silliness was just what the doctor ordered, and I had a fabulous day again.
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