berliner boyfriend

May 20 / in motion

I said,

Here is my new boyfriend on the boat:

She said,

Oh yes heʼs very cool drinking and smoking and rock and roll

I said,

Iʼm really excited to be a cliché in Berlin

Although Manuel is not the Berliner boyfriend name I was hoping for

sorry german culture

May 20 / Berlin

the Spanish look

May 21 / Berlin

Okay, so, here I am again in another new country where the weather is extremely amazing, which I know better than to catalog under anything other than Dumb Luck.

A portion of a family waiting outside this cafe on goodies from within is suggesting I also visit Munich, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Dresden.

When the son/dad emerges with what all they all wanted he asks if I am Spanish.

I’m American, I say, omitting the United States of, and he says, You have the Spanish look, which I cannot help but catalog under What Germans Have to Say About What Does and Doesn’t Look Jewish.

a red car painted like a cow

May 21 / Berlin

In Kreuzberg is a red car painted like a cow and, nearby, a GATOR CROSSING road sign. Vines growing all over the side of a building remind me of my ongoing battle with body hair.

In the Thai restaurant Manuel takes me to the toilets number two, one labeled SEXYLADY below a super-femme silhouette, the other with LADYBOY beneath an intersex symbol. The menu features German-language Thai food puns, which Manuel explains but not so well that they stick for the permanent record.

mostly cashless

May 22 / Berlin

•Cafe Blaumond/Le Petit Salon•

It’s much harder to get by without cash here in Germany than in Denmark and so I am limited to the few places that take cards until I take myself to a place that will convert the magnets on mine into euro-in-hand.

I actually think someone told me on my way to the winter trip, Scandinavia is mostly cashless, and then someone else said something—in I think the last day—about Germany being part of Scandinavia, which can…not be correct.

Can it? Let this currency business be my ass-backward proof to the contrary.