sábado, 18 de junho de 2011

Travel log - Europe - Day 16 (second part)

Day 16-7 from hero to villain in just a wart

My host wanted to establish a conversation on the subway, and I noticed his French was perfect. I felt it would be impolite not to enter the game. As soon as we arrived, a bunch of seven or eight French people were waiting for us. I thought they would be talking French but they greeted me in English when they knew I was Brazilian. As we started walking, Lorenzo kept talking to his friend, Selim. And one of the guys started talking to me. His name was Louis. And he was an engineer. Any similarities? And yes, he was just as good-looking as the other Louis. He started asking me many questions and when I told him I was an English teacher I thought he would feel uncomfortable. He told all the other guys and they all reacted enthusiastically and I felt surprised. He told me I should correct him when he made a mistake and that it would be so nice to practice. I felt at home. And the conversation went on till we were in the apartment. There I could talk more to the other people from the group and we had drinks, some cake and a lot of laughter. I did not interact much with people from Austria there. There was a girl taking pictures and we exchanged some sentences.



We went to the roof since the party was in a penthouse. And it was almost midnight so we saw the fireworks almost in the middle of the fireworks. It was a beautiful scene, the cold, the fireworks almost hitting us and all the people saying happy New year in many languages. They asked how they could say that in Portuguese.



Back to the inner part of the apartment, I stepped on one of the French girl’s foot. I apologized but Martin, one of the guys, told me I should bow and give her a massage. It was obvious he was making a joke but I put myself in my knees and as we were barefoot I excused myself and took her foot and started rubbing it. She really liked the massage. I knew she would because I have some experience with that. It was so nice to see their faces as she said it was good and the other girls and Martin said they wanted it too. So I took everyone’s feet and spent some time rubbing them. The funny thing was that martin wanted to embarrass me all along and every time he tried, I gave him such answers he started to feel embarrassed instead of the other way around. Never challenge me to see who can be nastier. I am quite respect but when challenged...
It was funny anyway. I went to the other room where people were dancing and I danced a lot. First, I danced alone and after, one of the girls, the most beautiful one (in my opinion) accepted to dance with me. I had so much fun as we spun around the room and made some steps I was inventing but did so as she thought I was an acceptable dancer. Then, I went back to the dining room and it was when thing began to go downhill.
First there was the story of the pepper. One Austrian guy gave Martin a chilli and asked if he was brave to bite it. He bit first and then when I arrived the poor French boy was almost crying. He said it was too strong. He was drinking water, wine, anything, he started eating the cake, he was going crazy. He wanted to punch the guy and I had to use of a lot of patience to calm him down. He said I told him to calm down because it was not me who was burning so I took the rest of the chilli and ate so that he could see I was brave and he could hold it. It was the strongest I had ever had. I held strong and he started to calm down. And I learned one should never bite a chilli in a different country.
By this time my friendship with Louis had withered. As soon as we arrived there I discovered one of the girls was his girlfriend. I was very skeptical that his approach had second intentions but up to that moment they had not displayed any kind of public affection. But on the party she got a bit cross, and he just left to stick with her till the end. I was being very detached and respectful, what was surprising, but true. Anyway, he went away and never came back to the groups I was in. Pity because the talks were amazing. After that, I managed to hit on the two other guys, Martin and Selim. Maybe it was the drinks, though I was not drunk. Maybe it was the loneliness and the fact I was far from home. I had some courage to, during our nice talks, make sure they noticed my interest in them. But they politely declined and I felt very happy, because the trying was much more meaningful than the achieving.
Finally, the tragedy came. I was massaging Sabine’s (the dancer) back and she was loving it. Then Selim wanted to learn how to do it, but he was not impressing as much strength as he should to make it effectively. I asked him to try on “my girl” while another would volunteer to serve as a model. One of them did so, the one I had had less contact with. And while I rubbed her neck, I would give him some advice on how to move the fingers and all, Then I pressed one wart she had on her back. It started bleeding. Game was over. She got completely upset. An awkward atmosphere took over as the girls aided her and everyone was commenting. She deeply resented having volunteered and she looked at me with contempt. The boys were understanding and saw it had been an accident, but the girls openly hostilized me. So there I was, turned into a monster after making the princess bleed. She left without saying goodbye to anyone. I had already apologized, but I guess she never forgave me.
It was almost 3am, I was tired and so was Lorenzo, so as the guys left we took the chance to do the same. We took a cab, which seemed as miraculous as riding Santa’s sledge at that moment and went home telling each other stories and our impressions of the night. We were both very happy with everything. But tomorrow a new person would arrive? Who would that girl be?

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