jess says i’m not allowed to tell anyone about this bar anymore or else they’ll take over and “bring their corny friends there” so i guess i’ll leave it a mystery. still! it’s my favorite bar in berlin because (as i was telling my friend stella) “it’s cheap and kind of rundown— just like me!”

it was pouring yesterday and i went there to meet a polish girl. i’d never seen it empty like that before. if you try to get a table after 10 you’re gonna wait a long time. but yesterday i walked in around 8 and got a pilsner and a shot of tequila (silver, so they give you lemon), and sat down in the back and lit my own candle. it was still light out on account of the sun setting at 9:30 pm here in the summer, and there were a few people tucked into little corners, but mostly the place was vacant in a nice way. i had anticipated a mob of freaks wailing in the deep and wound up feeling like i was in a library or a museum. the bartender was playing this new orleans swing music or something as the rain came down hard on the cobblestone outside.

the polish girl never showed on account of a mutual time / date misunderstanding . . . but for a moment i almost felt like i was being stood up, which has never happened to me before. so we decided to meet on sunday instead. i drank a little more of my beer and stood up to go home. by then the sky had dimmed and the streetlights were on and the dark clouds were still pouring down rain on berlin. i put my hood over my head and went outside. a cute girl whose face was lit by candlelight smiled at me through the darkened window of the bar as i walked past her on my way back to the train station.