The People Thatcha Meet

I meet some interesting people here in Braunschweig. It happens all the time. I just go outside, speak English, and -bam!- someone starts talking to me. Sometimes this turns out well and sometimes it turns out, well ...

So I'm out at my local pub the other night with Caroline. We're doing the whole have a beer and chat thing. This guy standing with a group six feet away glances back over his shoulder when he hears us speaking English and then decides to come over and talk to us. We're like, "Oh no" because what usually happens after someone comes over is this:

1. They ask "Where are you from?"
2. They ask "What are you doing here in Braunschweig?"
3. They invite themselves over to our table.
   

The inviting themselves over is not always necessarily bad, but I'd say more often than not it leads to 1) English lessons, 2) crazy people showing us pictures of ALL of their cats, or 3) a good hitting-on by a man old enough to be my father. I was not up for any of these. However, the guys who came over turned out to be awesome. They were like, "Hi, we're just three gay guys out on the town. Do you want to dance?" And then we danced. Not like ghetto-danced. Like danced danced. With proper form and stuff. This one guy showed me pictures of his boyfriend in Amsterdam and another, after learning that we're teachers, called up some other English-speaking teachers to hang out. The guys were so friendly, spoke great English (in addition to, of course, German), and were definitely not hitting on us. I had a wonderful time, probably the best Tuesday night I've had in Braunschweig.

Cut to tonight. I'm with my roommate at home and she says, "Hey could you do me a favor tonight? I met this guy named Joe who only speaks English and I wanted to invite him over for coffee. Can you translate for a while? I think he's American." So, I'm like, hey cool. No worries. So he's supposed to arrive at 8:00. But at 7:30 there's a buzz from downstairs. I let the buzzer person in and it's Joe - with a friend. Turns out, Joe also brought a translator, named KC (short for some very long name that I can't remember). They're super early, and Nadine is kinda freaking out. She's like, "Can you make some coffee and entertain a bit while I help my daughter with her homework and get ready?" Sure. No worries. So I'm making with the hostess duties (in my pajamas; I was also not prepared). Turns out Joe and KC are from Zimbabwe and Nigeria, respectively, but are here in Braunschweig to work. They like football and a couple of American TV shows that I like and oh yeah KC is seriously in love with me from the moment he meets me. We step outside for a moment to have a smoke and he starts laying on the smooth talk. He says I'm beautiful, a princess, well-built, nice, funny, and probably a good dancer. Within 30 minutes of knowing me. He wants me to sit on his lap on the balcony. He wants me to stay with him. He wants me to spend Christmas with him. He says that a woman needs a man in her life to make her happy, and that he knew that HE was the man for me. Within 30 minutes of knowing me. I tried gracefully to say no, thank you, and extricate myself from the awkward situation that had moved itself from the balcony into the kitchen. He was totally not getting it. So I made up a fake date that I simply had to be at at 9:30, texted Caroline from the bathroom with my "This is an emergency, I need a fake date. Coffee in 20?" text, and beat it out of there. True, I left my roomie without a translator, but I think she'll understand.

Oh, the people that you meet here. I have stories, people. BUCKETS of stories.