time for a rant

yes, even in godforsaken Valparaíso (where the Deutscher Verein is proud of his decade-old history but without any sort of purpose, mission, or activity stated either on its online platform or its real life version, a beautiful neoclassist building in complete disarray), yes even here (and I´m proud of this convoluted Germanic sentence) there was a little something-something in praise of el caída del muro.
So I went. This was great because I had spent the last days captive, nurturing my foot, which was sprained in pursuit of the F***head who stole my bag – ripped it off my body to be precise – but as this is the second time that happened to me, I did not have too much in it.. hah! Anyway, my foot hurt and was half-green, now less pain and less color, I went to the thing.
The introduction was given by a scarily inept boyish-looking guy: He hunched over the microphone and read with an intonation as if he had been Honecker´s personal disciple. In Spanish of course. The German accent in its purest form does amazing things to a language. I later saw him up close and was shocked to see that the 20something-from-afar up close looked like 40-something with a plastic face – an accident? Aesthetic surgery gone awry? And also, would Carrie not help but wonder about this, too?

But StrangeBabyFace also promised “Cocktails” after the films – and after the discussion … a “discussion”!! All of you went to university, right…? Anybody empathize with my immediate post-trauma reaction induced by the word “discussion”??? And what is there to “discuss”, exactly?! I feared the worst…

The films were the the usual fare, except an animation thing by Deutsche Welle that showed exactly how the walls functioned and how many lethal mechanism of “protection” were involved. All of it gave me goosebumps nevertheless, might be the distance from home. So I felt happy, actually.

The promise of the cocktail kept me until after the films, and I was hoping that everybody would be too shy to say anything, seeing that this guy was definitely unable to spark anything even if they gave him a flamethrower.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. Lots of people had the urge to talk. There were a couple of Chileans whose recollection for the most part went like this: “I went to Berlin/Germany/obscure other city, for the first time in…. and then again in … we really liked it and my husband said… that was so entertaining!“

Then there was a German guy, one of those cringe-inducing prototypes: long blond ponytail embracing the bald “spot”/greater part of the head, eye-wateringly babyblue sweater (I think the correct color is acquamarin… like the Skype logo or how do you call that button?), deathly thin, weathered face, talked as if he just smoked at least 3 giant spliffs. Even though at one (late) point he was lucid enough to realize (and express) that he was rambling, this did not stop him from continuing to do so.

Despite all this, the promise of “cocktails” kept me in buena honda though until this 24-year old blonde baby started speaking. She was obviously having the time of her life (and yes, I felt a touch of jealousy), judging from the hair-throwing and wrist-waving and general coquettishness, and she claimed that differences between East and West were still enormous.
Case in point: The different ways to tell the time (an example that another speaker had already used). “Every day” she was having great problems at understanding “the other half” (this is not a quote but my scorn). Allegedly the girl was from East Berlin, where people are more “egalitarian-oriented” and not “arrogant” as those nasty nasty Wessies.

Now. Have you ever heard of an East German not understanding the way in which a West German is telling the time?! The idiots in this time-trouble are those from the West, as far as my experience goes. And even if she grew up under a rock – and she was already four after all when the wall came down –, how hard can it be to figure out that unintellegible thing that the other person wants to say when she does not say “viertel”...
yes yes I know you are telling me I should say this to her… but I was so angry and I could not come up with anything that would make me look not arrogant to her.
And then, to top it off, there was one of those unsupportable “Gutmenschen” who wanted to finish the discussion on a happy, harmonic note and twittered that we should not judge (as if anybody had), there were good and bad things everywhere etc. Babyface accepted this as the last comment, he was obviously happy to have the thing over and done with.
By the way, the cocktails turned out to be terrible, headache-inducing red wine (I hate it when things are not properly denominated) and baby empanadas. Those were actually quite good.