Meeting People is Easy

It´s time to meet my new German friends:

Simona, a medical student who lives with Kathleen who enjoys smoking indoors and listening to Franz Ferdinand; Marko, a chemical engineer who lives 30 minutes away in a city I can´t pronounce; Afra, an old college friend of Kathleen´s who speaks no English and pretends I don´t exist; Christian, a really small guy who doesn´t speak English who I think also lives with Kathleen (there´s like seven people who live here); and Tina, Christian´s friend who thinks I´m interesting because I´m from America.

The night starts with muddling apprehension and confusion: I get handed a beer right before we leave the flat. Do I have to drink it really fast? Or can I go outside with it? Luckily everybody starts walking outside, so I follow suit, and find out later that as long as you aren´t "stumbling into people", nobody cares. The original plan was to go to a church and listen to some klavier musicians, but the plan has changed - we are now on our way to watch the funk-and-soul show (at a different church).

Walking up to the church, we realise it´s a five euro admission, so naturally we sneak in the back, bottles of Beck´s shoved down our pants. The show is about as bewildering as one would imagine any sort of German funk-soul fusion outfit, and the audience is mild-mannered and well-behaved. We make our way to the front of the church and relax on the steps. Me and Marko seem to be getting along, as we have a long confusing discussion about the dynamics of the North Sea and the surrounding environs, and what that means to you and me. He assures me this is a significant issue for young German environmentalists and anybody who wants to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. We are boring Christian and Tina.

We are drinking champagne now, as there is a stand nearby to attract some of the less devout churchgoers. A woman who was speaking heavy German to Kathleen turns around to me and starts asking me about Portland, in perfect English. Already this is strange, as I have gotten used to not being able to make out one single word anybody says to me. The woman and her husband buy our group more champagne and leave into the cold wet night. The rain starts to piss down and we race inside the church with our valuable champagne glasses, ones which can be returned for a one euro deposit. So essentially, I am getting paid to drink in church.

Off now to the Slaughterhouse (Der Schlacthof), Wiesbaden´s premier dance club, where they are spinning house records and the DJs are getting paid to pretend to look busy.



I explain to Marko the American male´s love of Vonnegut´s Slaughterhouse-Five and how I am planning on going to Dresden. "Wiesbaden was lucky," he says. "The Americans didn´t destroy it like they did Dresden." We go into the club and I start getting harrassed by Germans who assume I am Afra´s boyfriend. Or they are jealous of my smooth dance moves. Either way, Afra is plastered, and she´s dancing like it´s last night on Earth. Kathleen tells me that it´s even funnier because she "hates this kind of music."

The Slaughterhouse is not very full tonight, so we go back outside and I order beer successfully at the bar, all by myself. I am very proud of myself, and Marko beams at his pupil like I had just hit my very first home run. The night has lost its edge, and we leave the Slaughterhouse and the bobbing German heads and pulsing rubbish music. We walk along the train tracks on the way back home, and almost have a nasty run-in with some young Turks by the station. There are Turks everywhere in Germany. Tensions run high between Turks and Germans because of what Kathleen describes as (what else) "cultural misunderstandings." A Turk was arrested recently not far from where I am staying for murdering his sister in broad daylight. Her family was disappointed that she was not married and giving in to the perversions fitting those of young Europeans, so they decided she wasn´t worthy of life.

I wonder what they think about me!

TJH