It's another day of chores today. I pay for another couple nights at the hotel, buy film and postcards and pick up two more letters from Poste Restante - one from a friend named Graham and the other from my ex-boyfriend Seph. I prepare and post a padded envelope of maps, guide books and rolls of film back to Canada. I contact the local Servas coordinator to get a list of hosts in Denmark, which I arrange to pick up at 7:30pm.
I am too tired from my chores and last night's antics to visit attractions around the city, so I rest and eat dinner before meeting Peter at Mann-o-Meter at 6 pm. I show up to meet him with my German/English dictionary. He shows up in short shorts, his red underwear and ass cheeks bulging out on all sides in a vulgar fashion. He doesn’t look shy tonight. I am a bit shocked and embarrassed to be seen with him. I have to leave him at 7 to pick up the Servas list. I tell him I will be back at 8:30 but I am 25 minutes late in arriving because the Servas coordinator wanted to chat. Germans are usually punctual so I suppose he has already left by the time I return. I let it go without my usual level of guilt.
I walk several blocks to Anderes Ufer, another cafe bar where I order a drink and sit quietly by myself at the bar. Eventually the place begins to fill up. Two men sit by me at my end of the bar, an intellectual-looking fellow in his 30s with a red T-shirt and round glasses. He's about my height with sandy dark blond hair and a rough-stubble beard of the same colour. He's not handsome really, but he has a beautiful smile and I feel drawn to his quiet nature. I make a comment or two in English (of course). He smiles and nods at me, but makes no attempt to talk to me. Others come to the bar and stand or sit between us but he is the only one who interests me. I make occasional eye contact with him over the next hour or so and each time he smiles but that is as far as it goes. He leaves the bar around midnight. To avoid pursuing him obviously, I wait a few minutes before I leave.
From there I go to a bar I have not been to before, called Flip Flop, which had been recommended to me by one of the volunteers in Mann-o-Meter. I am not there very long before I am approached by an outgoing younger man who sidles up to me at the bar and introduces himself as Michael. He's not really appealing to me but it is nice to have someone to chat with in a strange city, at least at first. He starts off asking me about my traveling but he soon switches to his favourite topic, old movies. He bombards me with questions about them, but I am no expert. I am answering "I don't know" to almost everything, which he takes as permission to answer them for me at great length. After he has sucked most of the blood out of me and ruined the evening, I flee the bar. It's about 2:30 when I enter Tom's Bar again. I don't want to get into another conversation where I am someone's sounding board so I migrate into the dark room for a tactile encounter. I brush against one guy and he responds. We embrace, kiss and begin to explore each others bodies. It is sweeter and more caring than usual. Suddenly, some old drunk flicks on his lighter to get a view of the goings on around him. That generally kills all the action, but my partner and I meet eyes and we recognize each other. It is the fellow in the red T-shirt from Anderes Ufer. "You!" he gasps, and laughter bursts out across the room. He takes my hand and leads me to the light of the doorway.
We make our way to the bar and share a non-alcoholic beer. I ask him why he didn't speak to earlier at Anderes Ufer. He tells me he hadn't spoken English for a while and didn't want to try as he was too tried from work. He's a nurse and has just gotten off shift. Obviously destiny had other plans and now we are chatting warmly. His name is Andres Seifart. He needs to leave because it's after 3, but he wants to see me again. I want to see him again too. We agree to meet at Anderes Ufer again tomorrow night after his work around 11 pm.
PHOTO 1: unusual building art
PHOTO 2: law offices of Kleiner & Stein (NOT)
PHOTO 3: Church of Mary Magdalene (I think)
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