Guten Tag! (& The red futon)

Germany is a lovely country with a high life quality. I love it. Love the people, the language, the culture, the German Akribie... But like any other place, it is not perfect.

The biggest problem for a guy like me - no doubt about it - is the weather. This should be summer, but yesterday we were all freezing in the office, one of the girls was even wearing a scarf, the other one a big jacket.

It is cold. And gray. And has been raining for one week or two. And is cold. And dark gray. This is depressing. Is hard.

Yesterday, I woke up very early, around 6am, since I wanted to do so many things. But I didn't manage to get out of bed before 9am... So heavy is blanket of the gray sky.

So I slam the door, cursed the Rain God and saw an umbrella coming very slowly towards me exactly on my path. It was an old woman, the first person I met today. Thick, white socks half way up to the knees, big sandals, everything completely wet, a granny yellow dress full of flowers. The poor granny was not inspecting the sidewalk, but was victim of a terrible hump.

When she saw red sneakers towards her, she reacted very quickly and moved to her right, aware that she was walking "on my side". I didn't care about her reaction. Was focusing on my gray, rainy mood and trying to organize my day, French music playing on my iPod to feel some relieve.

And then, the miracle!

For the first time in all these years, I dare to think, a stranger talked to me out of the blue to be nice. And she changed my day.

"Guten Tag!"

She said it very kindly, putting some effort to look up to the sky to discover my face. But at that very moment I was passing by. Miraculously, her greeting manage to penetrate through the French song. I yelled her back: "Guten Tag!", but she didn't change her pace.

If that old woman, who has nothing in this world except a big hump, a crappy umbrella, and her white socks half way up to the knee in a gray, rainy, autumn-August morning is in such a good mood, why shouldn't I?

I smiled to the Rain God and had a great day.

* * *

Which was again improved by this other girl. We had met on the internet because she is leaving Munich and subletting her flat, and I am sick of this disgusting place (another reason to be in a bad mood), so I went to see hers.

She was nice and polite, the flat was even smaller than my smallest flat in Berlin. And then she showed me her room and a red futon:

- And this is the futon, which you can convert in a bed if you pull down this part here.
- Aha.
- It is very big.
- Yeah.
- It suits even a third person.
- Hahaha! Have you share it with two other people?
- No, but just to let you know, just in case...
- Right! Haha...

I managed to convince a hotel manager to partially pay my room with a T-shirt. But I never tried to convince somebody to rent my flat because my futon (not even a king size bed!) is great for having a little orgy. Crazy people!