What did I do on the 22nd of September? This was representative of the Sundays in September and October.
This was the second Sunday after E had come. He was very tired from his first work week. We both woke up at 08 and had a very pleasant breakfast talk for an hour. I lectured about Borges, since he had read his first Borges fiction a day earlier. At 09 we got ready for church. I dressed quite seriously, he more casually. We went to the evangelical church in Stern. The day's service was held by the children's group, so the church was very full with parents and relatives. The children performed several songs and I wept quite much, for it was so touching.
On the way back home, we bought chocolate croissants. Regular shops are not allowed to be open on Sundays in Germany, but bakeries can stay open until noon. Restaurants can stay open all day. We had lunch at a restaurant near our room. We were both feeling very enthusiastic about our new country at the time, so we ordered two schnitzels and two tall glasses of wheat beer.
In the early afternoon I studied German for a couple of hours, in preparation for a rendez-vous with miss S at 15. I arrived punctually, she arrived 5 minutes late. Arriving late is acceptable on Sundays, for the same reason that having a clock on a wall inside a church sermon room would be wrong. Precise timekeeping should not be done on the holy day. We met at the Brandenburger Tor, the smaller one in Potsdam. We spent a bit more than two hours walking in Sanssouci park. The first thing that happened was that she managed to pay for my coffee. Luckily, I got an opportunity to buy entrance for both of us to the Chinese Tea House. I found the depicted Chinese in the tea house to be quite amusing, because they looked so much like Europeans wearing long mustaches. The painter had probably not seen many Asians.
The park Sanssouci was overall very beautiful. I felt blessed to live in a city where entrance to such a place with such palaces was free. In an average other city, it would have set you back at least 10 euros. Miss S had lived in Sweden for a number of years, so we talked about that and I prodded her for differences between Swedish and German music, which seemed to be our greatest common interest. We said goodbye in a friendly way and I believed we would meet again, but we never got around to it.
10 minutes after saying goodbye to miss S, was my appointed time with the afternoon's second date: miss B. Miss B was quite late however. She hadn't confirmed the appointment by text on the day (which means one may intend to flake), but she answered the phone when I called and got on her bike. E met up with us as well, and the three of us had a very good chemistry right away. She was very cheerful and immediately chummy, nudging my arm several times when making a joke about me. We had dinner at an Asian place, being served in very large bowls. The outdoor space was crammed with guests, but we got our own table. I got praise from E and B for pronouncing "check, please" very well in German. E was in a very good mood when biking back to Babelsberg. We became friends with miss B, and met with her on several occasions until the end of October.
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