Saturdays Are For Dates and Stalkers

I started today much earlier than I had imagined, as I was out insanely late last night with the Team Edenloff. We went to an awesome restaurant called Ali Baba in the west, then hit the train to East Berlin. After walking about for some time, we found the awesome Kaffee Burger, where we enjoyed many beers, heard a questionable live band, took a gazillion photos, found that Nils had enjoyed a friendly arm-wrestle with a cross-dresser, discovered that Berliners enjoy 90s alt-rock cover songs (think "Come as You Are") performed by Elvis impersonators. and danced it up to hilarious Deutsche and possibly Swiss music.

In any case, I was up at 10 and out the door by 11. I went back to East Berlin today, seeing as I spent all yesterday in the West. When I got off the train, a very charming young man started chatting me up -- which thrilled me primarily in that I was able to understand and respond! -- and asked me to join him for a coffee date or disco dancing at night. Which I clearly didn't, but I am pretty sure that's the first date request I've had in many years. Perhaps it was inspired the fact that I was setting time-lapsed pictures in between stations. See that guy in the background giving me a weird look? It was totally justified.

The day went on and I made an ass of myself once by knocking over this huge chair, but was otherwise darn good. A lot of walking and admiring and taking pictures of the Berlin bears and navigating the city and all that good stuff.

I took the 100 back to West Berlin, as it was a double-decker bus and I was certain it would be worth it, but instead just ended up wilting entirely on the top level of a sardine package. Not good. In any case, when I finally got off, I arrived to street breakdancing and my good spirits returned.

But! Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that a strange man was kind of following me. I started doing a lot of moving around, changing, directions, etc., but he was 10 feet behind me no matter where I went. Though initially sure I was imagining things, after 45 minutes, I was pretty certain that I was either going to be mugged or taken hostage in some dramatic situation that my family would surely see on television tomorrow.

So! I rushed my vaguely terrified ass to a restaurant. He followed. I walked out. He followed. I went back in. You get the point. In any case, then I sat down beside a table full of middle-aged women, where I was pretty certain I would be safe.

And then he came right over and asked if he could sit with me.

My jackassed response?

"Nein! Nein, bitte!"

I think he was taken aback, as he repeated it. "Nein? Oh. Nein."

Perhaps, after all, he wasn't a murderer, but just another coffee date, going about things entirely the wrong way.

In any case, I remained completely anxious for an hour, while I had a latte and peeked around suspiciously.

Dude was long gone. I made my way safely to bus, cash and ID and bus pass safely in my possession, body parts and guts all accounted for.

I'm a loser.

In any case, I'm back at the hotel now and getting ready for another night out with Nils, Jake, and Heather. Last night was jam-packed with hilarity and I'm certain tonight will be equally fun. And, yes, I'll post a link to the album tomorrow so this doesn't look like I'm writing some kind of lazy man's novel.