Ich bin ein Kubaner...

So Saturday I had made plans to meet up with two separate groups of people, with the end goal of merging the two groups at a club in Kreuzberg. That did not happen. Instead, I went to meet up with the first group who called to inform me they would be an hour late, at which point I joined an "Abschiedsparty" (good bye party) for a drinks warehouse that was closing this particular branch.

Everyone spoke broken German (myself included) or Spanish (in which case I just stood there and smiled). It was pouring rain and the party was using a bunch of huge tents so they could grill outside while they ate inside. I initially asked if I could just stand under the tents while I waited for my friends. They said, "Sure!!" and we started talking. The Cuban, who had come over in 1987 as a guest worker to East Germany and then stayed after the fall of the wall, was grilling all sorts of fresh fish and meat that they had specially gotten for the party. He initially asked, "Do you want wine or beer?" And I was like, "no, it's ok. I don't want to crash, I'm just waiting for my friends. And then I'm going to leave." Five minutes later: "Wine or beer?" "no thanks." Five minutes later: "Wine or beer?" "No thanks." Five minutes later: "red or white?" "White please." The Cuban finally won and I accepted the glass of wine. (Although I do feel like free food and booze is winning for me, too.) 

We talked about Cuba, guest working, and specially raised pigs that only eat acorns, and later I met a German who had lived in the U.S. for 10 years, and an Italian architect who had lived in Berlin for the last three years. All the wine was from the warehouse and they had opened only the best bottles. By the end of the night I had tried two whites and two reds, all of which were excellent. The food also was amazing and I ate a ton despite having had dinner already. Needless to say, I ended up staying for two and a half hours and had a ball...

It's funny how I had initially been trying to combine two different events but unexpectedly ended up at a third one instead! As I was trying to explain this whole situation to my friend on Monday, she put it best: "You seem to keep finding these events that will only happen once ever." What can I say? It's Berlin.