Your parents warn you about it at home. You teachers tell you about it in school. Public ad campaigns say it on TV. Don’t talk to strangers. Well, this week I did the opposite of that. I talked to a LOT of strangers, very few of which were actually strange and all of which I really enjoyed meeting. 

It was Friday and Justin and I were heading to work after my morning German classes (which have been fantastic, by the way!). While on the S-Bahn, I noticed an older woman in front of us with a Spanish flag on her phone, and decided to say hi. It turns out that she is a German from Berlin, but was taking Spanish lessons. We ended up talking in Spanish for the entire 20-minute ride. 

After work, Justin and I — did I mention Justin, my friend and fellow laidlaw scholar, is here too!? — were talking to our host mother. During the week, we were able to work at the Araminta office, but on the weekends, we still wanted to get some work done (we are New Yorkers at heart, after all). She recommended we either try a café or go to the Freie Universität Berlin (FUB). The next day, we did just that. 

Justin and I woke up early and went to the Fuchs Cafe (the Fox café!). I got a delicious pastry and Justin got “one of the best cups of coffee” he has ever had. We were sitting and working when someone came up to me and said hi. I was completely confused until I realized it was the same woman that we had spoken to the day before on the metro. Apparently, she lived in the area, and this was one of her favorite cafés. We ended up running into each other again a few times on my way to work. We talked in Spanish for a bit, and she told me that the Barista was apparently also a Spanish speaker, and in fact came from Chile! She then introduced us. 

Gaspar has apparently been living in Germany for the last 15 years and now speaks perfect German to the point where even native German speakers cannot tell it is a second language for him. (That was really inspiring for my own German-learning journey.) We ended up chatting for a bit; I talked to him about learning German and Justin about how his was some of the best coffee he’d ever had. Gaspar was so happy with that compliment that he even gave Justin another free glass!

We were absolutely thrilled at the amazing people that we’d talked to and the café  we’d stumbled upon. We decided we’d go there every weekend we could. They closed at 5 pm, and when we asked Gaspar if he had any good study spots for us, he also suggested we try a university nearby. With that, we got our GPS out and went to FUB. 

Maybe it was the faulty maps, but we must have somehow entered through the wrong entrance, because the university looked absolutely empty. Justin was worried that we were trespassing and said that it looked like the start of a horror movie, but I’d done the Freie Universität Berlin international Session (FUBiS) the year before with the Columbia German program, and so knew what I was doing. It started pouring the second we arrived. Luckily, we were able to find a spot in the Mensa (cafeteria) before getting drenched. There were tons of students all around and we had some trouble finding a spot with an outlet, but we eventually did. 

We sat down and didn’t even start doing work when another group of students came and sat down at the table next to ours. We made eye contact and smiled. My friendlier side wanted to go say hello, but neither of us did. Until one of them came up and asked us if we happened to have a charger. One thing led to another and we ended up chatting with Sophie, the German girl who came to our table, and two of her friends, for the next hour. Apparently they were students at a nearby university and were planning on playing Volleyball, but were also caught by the rain. They told us that Sophie and David, another computer science student interested in start ups, were going to study abroad in the States next year. We hit it off and decided we’d meet up again. 

Next Thursday, we did! We went back to FUB, but this time to play some paddel. Sophie and David apparently got a student discount, and so insisted on being the ones to rent out the court. Justin and I agreed, but only if they let us invite them to dinner afterwards. We played … paddel. To be honest it was not our finest performance, but we had an absolute blast. It started raining again, but we didn’t let that stop us. After the hour was up, Sophie invited us to meet her family and to cook at her place, which we did! 

We spent about an hour at the grocery store trying to find something that filled all of our groups’ dietary restrictions — vegan, egg-free, lactose-free, and nut-free — but we eventually did. We ended up cooking a delicious pasta with our own home-made vegetable sauce. Luckily, Justin and Sophie are incredible cooks, and carried the operation. David and I did an okay job setting up the table. We had a delicious dinner, and ended up playing cards (a super fun variation of Egyptian Ratscrew where new rules were introduced every time you won, to the point where we were slapping our faces before slapping the cards) until 1:30 in the morning. It was incredible. By this point, I only had about a week left, but we agreed that we would meet up one more time before then. 

I don’t really know what the moral of this lesson is. I’d like to say that talking to strangers is a great idea, but maybe sometimes. To be honest, it was probably a bit reckless what we did, but I’m so glad that we did it anyway. 

(Note: Sorry this is so late, I (like some other scholars) was also having issues posting.)