I gave my talk at nine (9) am (on a Sunday). Afterwards, I met someone I didn’t knew I knew who’s from Poland. Nice to meet at least someone at the conference I (didn’t knew I) knew. So that was it, first flight was, of course, overbooked; had to check my cabin bag for some reason. Flight from Paris to Berlin was late (again). Felt like hours waiting at the baggage claim, grabbed the bag and made a run for the bus stop. Motor was running, blinking to the left, starting to pull into traffic. I waved awkwardly and the driver must’ve seen that because he stopped the bulky green vehicle. Nice guy let me in, stowed my bags, everybody gazing at me. Yes asshats, I am the evil holder-upper. I just cost you four (4) seconds you’ll never get back. But maybe just not looking so fresh, I suppose, with a certain (mildly high) likelihood of smelliness. So this is it then. Goodby cruel word, i.e. Tegel!
But wait, two more random things that might be of interest and that both have to do with women (oh! you don’t say! how interesting!): one young and the second one was older. Firstly, and for some reason (bucket list? jet-lag? hormones?) I had lunch at a Hooters restaurant. I didn’t know how awkward it would be to go there by myself. The answer is: it surely was, but only kinda. While I was waiting for my burger to cook, a young and attractive waitress joined me at the bistro table and made some smalltalk with me. Let’s call her Bambi. I’m not saying it wasn’t entertaining or interesting or anything, and she was certainly good-looking and all, but she was also dumb as a doornail and didn’t know that there was a different currency in Europe. I had to show her some Euro paper money to convince her.
Leaving this classy joint, I rolled a cigarette and immediately got hit up for it by a homeless woman who was cowering in a niche in front of a café. I gave her the cigarette (I always do this and smoking is one reason why I’ve been talking a lot with homeless people in the US; homeless make for a much larger portion of the demographic than in Germany and are also often nicer and wiser than ‘normal’ people; I saw a lot of tent cities in Oakland and San Francisco). Well, this woman was certainly something else (drugs, probably). Taking the smoke from me, she spotted the conference tag that was hanging around my neck that had my name printed on it. Her expression suddenly changed as she took a long, hard look at me.
“Are you Steffen Woll?” she asked excitedly. “Are you really him? From [inaudible]!?” First I thought she was making fun of me, but she seemed very serious in her excitement. There were some groups of people walking by us and she pointed a bony finger at me, exclaiming “guys, this is Steffen Woll!!!” Well, as you can imagine, I was somewhat surprised, but just decided to play along with her antics and nod my head yes, it is me, the actor or whoever you think I am. I mean, I didn’t technically lie, it is my name after all. Some hours after this incident, I saw her again in front of the Hyatt, spotting me and making a bee-line. I fled into the lobby to avoid her making a scene.
That’s all folks.
PS: If anyone knows what movie or TV show I’m in, please be so kind and let me know.