5te Mai - Cinco de Mayo
It's 11:30 PM on Cinco de Mayo and I am dancing to Mariachi music with a woman in traditional Mexican dress in front of a very large stained glass window depicting Elvis in front the Berlin Wall and Brandenburg gate. How did I get here? Best to start from the beginning.
My desk phone rings at 5:00 PM and it is Jordan calling to ask if I will pick her up at the home of one of her classmates on my way home from work.
"Its in the Grunewald, just of the highway on your way home," she says.
"Oh, I didn't know there were homes there," I say. "I thought the Grunewald was just a huge park. Is it like a leafy suburb or something?"
"Umm yea, like no suburb we'll ever live in."
I get stuck with a technical problem and am, of course, late for the agreed upon 6:15 pick up. When I roll up to the house at 6:35 I am sure I must be in the wrong place. The street is just a massive row of mansions plopped down in the middle of the park. I call Jordan's cell as I am afraid I am in the wrong place and don't want to have to explain myself in German to some butler who would answer the door. When I tell Jordan that I'm here, she says that she will be right out. Sure enough the massive double doors in front of me open up and there is Jordan with her new friend Nina.
Jordan has spent the afternoon having lunch and getting to know her new classmate. Nina is an Australian actress of Chinese descent who has moved to Berlin to be with her German boyfriend, the owner of the massive house. I briefly meet Nina and she tells me how she and her boyfriend met in China where he was doing business and Nina was acting in a Play. I comment about how very global her life appears while she takes me on a tour of the wine cellar.
Soon Jordan and I are off to the Ku'Damm where we have plans to meet another one of her classmates and her husband for dinner. On the way back into town Jordan tells me that Nina is actually a pretty famous actress in Australia and that her boyfriend is the owner of one of the largest recycling firms in Germany. This explained the palatial estate. We later look Nina up on IMDB and find that she is an accomplished dancer and actress and has had a very full 10-year career in Australian film and Television. Despite the fact that neither of us has ever heard of her, she is now the most famous person we know.
Dinner plans are with Laura and Eric, from Venezuela. Eric works for a brewery in Venezuela and is here to study brew making. Laura is the trailing spouse. I have met them once before and enjoyed the time, even if it is hard to communicate. They both know some English and some German and of course Spanish. Jordan and I both recall some Spanish and between the three languages we manage to converse well, even if not at a very deep level.
Dinner is lovely and they ask if we would like to join them afterwards at a friend’s dance performance to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. What the heck? Turns out the Performance is at the Berlin Hard Rock Café.
Entering the Hard Rock is like stepping back into the 80s and back into the US. There is English everywhere and giant inflatable Corona bottles bobbing up and down between the tables. We are seated in front of the stage and brought beers instantly. I’ve already had a few beers. (How can you not have a few beers when you’re out on the town with a brew master in training?) At the back of the stage is the 20 x 15 stained glass window of Elvis described above. I had forgotten just how cheesy the Hard Rock is.
The show starts with four women in traditional Mexican dress doing Mexican dances on the stage. They are followed by a very good Mariachi Band. More Venezuelans arrive and chat with our tablemates and it occurs to me just how odd this is given that Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday.
At this point I think the show is over and I am contemplating going home. Most of you probably know that too much beer just makes me sleepy these days. (Man, I am so old.) But, there is more drinking to do and the South Americans are not ones for an early bedtime. So it is that forty minutes later the second act of the show kicks off and my chair just happens to be in the fount and center of the audience. This does not seem like a problem until about 10 minutes in when the dancers step off the stage and begin dancing in the audience. They appear to be going to grab their friends from the audience to join them. Just then one grabs my hand and begins to pull. I am confused. I don’t know this woman. Jordan gives a giant shove from behind and before I know it I am on stage attempting to move my body in a way that resembles dancing. It should be noted that I have the worst sense of rhythm on earth. I look around and note the rest of the men who have been pulled up appear to all be of Latin decent and know how to salsa. My dance partner notices this too, and seems to be questioning her choice of audience members. When I am finally released from my own personal hell, and sent back to my table, Jordan has grin the size of Texas on her face. Laura’s friend, Danielle has managed to snap pictures of this event with her cell phone. (Note: these photos have yet to be seen and will be destroyed if at all possible.)
As Cinco de Mayo turns to Seises de Mayo, I am exhausted. The combination of a long workweek, 6 hours of trying to comprehend two languages I don’t really know and of course the beers and the humiliation have gotten to me. We bid everyone adios and walk home.
It occurs to me as we are walking home that this has been a very uniquely ex-pat experience. Ex-pats seem to be drawn to each other – we are all strangers in a foreign land. So, while it was not the most German of experiences, I can’t imagine another scenario where we would have spent the day hanging out with an Australian before heading off to dinner with Venezuelans and then going out to celebrate a Mexican Holiday at a cheesy rock and roll themed American chain restaurant. Not exactly what I thought I was signing up for, but a valuable experience nonetheless. And, of course, if Jordan ever gets her hands on the photos of me dancing with the Mexican woman in front of Elvis, I am sure she will get a lot of blackmail mileage out of it.
My desk phone rings at 5:00 PM and it is Jordan calling to ask if I will pick her up at the home of one of her classmates on my way home from work.
"Its in the Grunewald, just of the highway on your way home," she says.
"Oh, I didn't know there were homes there," I say. "I thought the Grunewald was just a huge park. Is it like a leafy suburb or something?"
"Umm yea, like no suburb we'll ever live in."
I get stuck with a technical problem and am, of course, late for the agreed upon 6:15 pick up. When I roll up to the house at 6:35 I am sure I must be in the wrong place. The street is just a massive row of mansions plopped down in the middle of the park. I call Jordan's cell as I am afraid I am in the wrong place and don't want to have to explain myself in German to some butler who would answer the door. When I tell Jordan that I'm here, she says that she will be right out. Sure enough the massive double doors in front of me open up and there is Jordan with her new friend Nina.
Jordan has spent the afternoon having lunch and getting to know her new classmate. Nina is an Australian actress of Chinese descent who has moved to Berlin to be with her German boyfriend, the owner of the massive house. I briefly meet Nina and she tells me how she and her boyfriend met in China where he was doing business and Nina was acting in a Play. I comment about how very global her life appears while she takes me on a tour of the wine cellar.
Soon Jordan and I are off to the Ku'Damm where we have plans to meet another one of her classmates and her husband for dinner. On the way back into town Jordan tells me that Nina is actually a pretty famous actress in Australia and that her boyfriend is the owner of one of the largest recycling firms in Germany. This explained the palatial estate. We later look Nina up on IMDB and find that she is an accomplished dancer and actress and has had a very full 10-year career in Australian film and Television. Despite the fact that neither of us has ever heard of her, she is now the most famous person we know.
Dinner plans are with Laura and Eric, from Venezuela. Eric works for a brewery in Venezuela and is here to study brew making. Laura is the trailing spouse. I have met them once before and enjoyed the time, even if it is hard to communicate. They both know some English and some German and of course Spanish. Jordan and I both recall some Spanish and between the three languages we manage to converse well, even if not at a very deep level.
Dinner is lovely and they ask if we would like to join them afterwards at a friend’s dance performance to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. What the heck? Turns out the Performance is at the Berlin Hard Rock Café.
Entering the Hard Rock is like stepping back into the 80s and back into the US. There is English everywhere and giant inflatable Corona bottles bobbing up and down between the tables. We are seated in front of the stage and brought beers instantly. I’ve already had a few beers. (How can you not have a few beers when you’re out on the town with a brew master in training?) At the back of the stage is the 20 x 15 stained glass window of Elvis described above. I had forgotten just how cheesy the Hard Rock is.
The show starts with four women in traditional Mexican dress doing Mexican dances on the stage. They are followed by a very good Mariachi Band. More Venezuelans arrive and chat with our tablemates and it occurs to me just how odd this is given that Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday.
At this point I think the show is over and I am contemplating going home. Most of you probably know that too much beer just makes me sleepy these days. (Man, I am so old.) But, there is more drinking to do and the South Americans are not ones for an early bedtime. So it is that forty minutes later the second act of the show kicks off and my chair just happens to be in the fount and center of the audience. This does not seem like a problem until about 10 minutes in when the dancers step off the stage and begin dancing in the audience. They appear to be going to grab their friends from the audience to join them. Just then one grabs my hand and begins to pull. I am confused. I don’t know this woman. Jordan gives a giant shove from behind and before I know it I am on stage attempting to move my body in a way that resembles dancing. It should be noted that I have the worst sense of rhythm on earth. I look around and note the rest of the men who have been pulled up appear to all be of Latin decent and know how to salsa. My dance partner notices this too, and seems to be questioning her choice of audience members. When I am finally released from my own personal hell, and sent back to my table, Jordan has grin the size of Texas on her face. Laura’s friend, Danielle has managed to snap pictures of this event with her cell phone. (Note: these photos have yet to be seen and will be destroyed if at all possible.)
As Cinco de Mayo turns to Seises de Mayo, I am exhausted. The combination of a long workweek, 6 hours of trying to comprehend two languages I don’t really know and of course the beers and the humiliation have gotten to me. We bid everyone adios and walk home.
It occurs to me as we are walking home that this has been a very uniquely ex-pat experience. Ex-pats seem to be drawn to each other – we are all strangers in a foreign land. So, while it was not the most German of experiences, I can’t imagine another scenario where we would have spent the day hanging out with an Australian before heading off to dinner with Venezuelans and then going out to celebrate a Mexican Holiday at a cheesy rock and roll themed American chain restaurant. Not exactly what I thought I was signing up for, but a valuable experience nonetheless. And, of course, if Jordan ever gets her hands on the photos of me dancing with the Mexican woman in front of Elvis, I am sure she will get a lot of blackmail mileage out of it.
posted by Dan at
10:30 PM
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