I stood behind my colleague, Dan, waiting in line for him to complete check-in at the hotel we were staying in for work for the next several days. We were halfway through the trip, having travelled from Chicago to Europe, and from the first stop in Norway to our second here in Germany. He was talking to the young lady behind the counter, and I was desperately trying to hear what she was saying. Well, at least trying to hear her German-influenced English accent.
I fell into thought about how I loved to travel, to experience different culture and architecture, but that I hadn't been on many international work excursions because of the large workload and domestic travel I had in my prior job. That was one of the reasons I left the company for a position in another company: the workload. The boss was kind of a shit as well, but I was ready for something new, and this company was providing me with new challenges. Things were great, though different, and still I was still becoming accustomed to the job, but overall it offered more balance to my work-driven lifestyle than before, and had opened up opportunities to travel I never had that I always wanted.
Many years ago I took a couple of German language classes, Spanish too, and because it had been more than twenty years, I was curious to see how much would come back to me here in Germany. Already having travelled through the airport and train, I was daunted by just how much I didn't know and couldn't remember. But, it was fun trying to understand the people riding on the train, the signs posted along the way while we travelled on the train, and then navigating our way to the hotel.
The hotel was fairly close, and we walked for just a couple of blocks from the train station rather than catch a cab or rely on some other transportation. In all, it was more opportunity to try to remember words, phrases, how sentences were structured, and start to experience the language best I could, even though we were surrounded by sex shops, casinos, and restaurants.
Somewhere in my reverie, I came back to the present to catch the hotel clerk telling my co-worker that a voucher for coffee and cake would be valid any time, though breakfast time might not be best due to the volume of people in the afternoon. Stopping for a second, she quickly caught the error and corrected what she said, saying that it was busiest in the morning. Interestingly, she turned a slight pink color out of embarrassment and kind of laughed it off with Dan. I smiled. I had forgotten that the people here were speaking a second language for them, English, and though they certainly had more experience with English than I had with German, I felt a bit more settled about being in a foreign country.
My co-worker stepped away from the desk, and I stepped up. I measured the young lady in front of me, Sabine, as she ran through the check-in routine – calm, respectful, assured, and confident in her English. Sabine was 5'7", maybe 24 years old, thin, and fair skinned with color similar to a white seashell glowing a light peach from the sun setting on a tropical beach – radiant, soft, and lovely. Her hair was parted above her left eye, pulled over to the other side and back into a tight bun, though still exuding texture and color with light brown providing a backdrop to blonde highlights that reflected playfully under the light above the counter. She had very full lips, with strong facial features that were definitely attractive. Under a blue blazer she wore a white shirt with a white tie – oversized compared to the way men would wear a tie in the United States - with a pair of blue blazers to match. Though the uniform didn't exactly compliment her shape, I could tell from when Sabine bent over to get the receipt from the printer that she had nice curves and that she was shapely if not in shape as well. Yes, I was looking, I couldn't help it. What can I say?
I smirked as I thought of a "cute" little comment I could make from her encounter with Dan. I'd always had a penchant for playfulness, though it had backfired on me with several women in the past, and I sort of fluttered inside thinking of what it would be like to say it. Hell, it wasn't like I was going to say it, mind you, because it would be kind of flirting and I was definitely of out of practice.
You see, I was quite shy. My hesitancy to connect with new people had led me to a career in IT, where I could write programs and code away hours into the night, or read up on the latest technology trends in journals and magazines. I had never been an avid online gamer or social site follower, so I didn't have much of a community of friends that way. I had a few close friends, like me, which resulted into numerous nights of drinking and watching Star Wars or The Lord of The Rings trilogies. It was a good, perhaps sometimes lonely, life.
And it's not that I was overweight, or rail thin, or that I had really bad acne, or wicked crooked teeth, or coke-bottle glasses mind you. Not that any of those are bad or wrong, it's just that I was roughly six feet tall, 175 pounds, and I've been told that I'm handsome. I ran 20-30 miles a week after fighting the weight gain that had crept up on me, losing twenty pounds from my heaviest. At 41, I had a full head of hair still that I styled into a curly mess on the top of my head, with grey here and there in a way that some called "distinguished," though to me I just felt older. I had what I thought was a larger nose than should be, but average size down there, if you know what I mean. Sure, one of my former girlfriends had told me I had more girth than other men she'd been with, but I guess I took that with a grain of salt. It was just that I was shy. Oh well...
"Here is your voucher for coffee and cake, sir, which is good at any time," Sabine continued her talk.
"OK, then, is that breakfast in the afternoon?" I blurted, surprising myself and smiling a broad smile through my rose-tinged skin as I felt a rush of blood come to my face from embarrassment. I was now unbelievably nervous and hadn't really expected to say it out loud, but there it was.
Then she did the most amazing thing: she smiled. Not just a "Nice comment, asshole," kind of smile, no. Sabine gave me a bright, light-up-the-room kind of smile that filled my entire vision. She, too, had blushed, perhaps what I said embarrassed her, maybe my shit eating grin caught her off guard, but it was absolutely the most delightful experience of my day, and possibly the trip.
She laughed, and kept smiling throughout the rest of my check-out experience, my to my delight. We finished, and I left, feeling definitely warmer than I had when I came in. Was it from the hotel's heating system or from her? Stupid, of course it was her.
I worked my way up to the room, pulling my luggage behind me carrying a backpack full of computer equipment on my back. I thought back – damn - I must've looked like the hunch back from Notre Dame because I never took it off during my encounter with Sabine. So much for a good impression. I popped the door open and, with much effort, threw all my stuff down and fell back on the bed, reliving my experience in my mind. Then, I fell asleep.
"Ring-Ring" the phone rang, waking me from slumber. Ok, it was more like sounding a bull horn next to a monkey sleeping soundly on a tree branch: I basically screeched the call of the jungle as I jumped off the bed in a state of confusion, nearly falling to the floor while looking for the phone. "Ring-Ring" it went again, and I swore under my breath at whoever was on the other end of the phone, rubbing my knee that had hit the bed frame. I picked up the receiver, "Helllo?"
