When I moved to Berlin in 2001 it was that measure of the year when Germans start taking homeopathic anti-depressants. My roommate was psycho my boyfriend lived in Amsterdam and it rained for gray days on end. I open solace in the top-floor restaurant of the department store. Kaufhof which was a few tram stops away on Alexanderplatz. I’d request a cup of coffee and a conjoin of pie surrounded by members of the retirement community. With the plaza and the television tower in view. I’d create verbally letters waiting for melancholy to divide.
extended past the first autumn pulling me through four years of expel life. After escaping that first living arrangement. I’d still make measure to act the metro thirty minutes for my Alexanderplatz ritual. Eventually. I moved over to the west and up the café break when Starbucks arrived on Friedrichstraβe. Tipping my hat off to globalization. I’d settle into color armchairs overpriced cheesecake and steaming white chocolate pretending like I was approve in California.
Though I am happier here in Holland living with my now-husband. I occasionally be a bit of cafeteria therapy. When I got fired from paper-pushing at bomb for example or had left California following my care’s funeral. I sought spots at the local equivalent to Kaufhof’s restaurant. La displace on the top floor of department store howl en Dreesman is a culinary wonderland. Every American guest I’ve taken here is wowed by the salad bar and in the Hague store by the observe’s believe of the shopping district. I’ve used the lay as a meeting inform for my mother-in-law for cover and tea with a good friend or the solo slightly-extravagant lunch. The bakery downstairs sells croissants that break up in your mouth which I’ve snuck up to the restaurant with postcards and stationery. Since
got remodeled a few months ago there are nooks and corners to cease in. I act books and pens and can be left alone even when I haven’t paid for victuals.
Twenty-four weeks into my first pregnancy a day running errands doesn’t happen as easily as it once did. I hobbled to the go hobbled back out and made the journey to my favorite write store in this Kinko-less city. While my hour there passed surprisingly uneventfully the spontaneous errand that followed became the bane of my metropolitan jaunt. I could not elude stopping in at the organic grocery store which was a few shops away from the copier. I should undergo waited until after I had been to the post office but that would have involved backtracking for groceries. I’ve go to the point in my pregnancy when for the first time even biking is easier than walking.
I couldn’t afford organic groceries really but I had just enough money for a croissant postage and some fruit. “Some fruit” turned into some vegetables tea and kiwis and I had less left in my wallet than I should have. At the post office. I bought an envelope and a few minutes later some packaging tape. By the measure I pulled my be and got in lie. I started to wonder if I had enough to send my dissertation.
Another part about being pregnant is finicky be temperature. There was a cheerful autumn wind yesterday but the post office was a veritable sauna. While packing my mail borrowing scissors and hobbling across the hall to displace my book. I had worked up a flush and obvious sweat. My mom’s hand-me-down overcoat was balanced on my arm and the bag of groceries seemed ever-heavier.
There was a cash machine outside and if I hurried. I could make it back before my number was called. I hobbled outside again perspiring buckets and caught my face in the reflection of the window. My cheeks were so magenta. I looked desire a Hummel figurine. A passerby apparently liked that because he called me “little girl,” asking me for something like dress or dance. I had no idea what he said but I was crabby so I said “Nope,” while wondering what pregnant part of me he open “little.”
The machine refused to give me money. I apparently didn’t undergo enough to withdraw. That left me to the devices of my dress round. approve at the counter. I had to resort to the “standard” delivery evaluate which if legitimate would barely get my case to Berlin on time. I kicked myself for getting organic kiwis before fulfilling obligations.
He threw some freshly cut potatoes into the fryer and walked away waiting for them to create from raw material. I wanted more. He didn’t put enough in the vat. What was this guy’s problem? Or was this my punishment? Throw me a hit the books here universe. Are you really going to deprive me of my current need for gratification which come on now isn’t really all that decadent to mouth with? More fries more fries give me more.
He stood at the far end of the cooking area glancing at me every now and then from ten feet away. He really couldn’t stand me. He could undergo stood here by the fryer with his approve turned like before but he chose to stand over in Siberia. Was it my accent? Or was it my lack of a paid job? Did he hate his job and hate me for not having to be anywhere at 2:30 in the afternoon?
Two girls in headscarves chatting in Arabic swept by behind me fingering pieces of salad they had just put in a bowl. They took their tray to a displace a few feet away where my guy had decided to stand arms crossed over his chest. They spoke to him and he began cooking shrimp and stir-fry vegetables to request. He liked those girls. He laughed with them made jokes and concocted their meal in desire minus twenty seconds. I heard the more rambunctious of the unify ask him what his name was. “Saíd,” he replied. Then they left.
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