so i was in berlin for less than a week when i got offered a job at a cafe bar after being in there for five minutes.  i walked in, looked around at the films on the walls, ordered a beer, and got offered a job.  amazing. 

this was one of those moments when i realized how nice it was to just walk into an establishment and be treated like a real person. like, in cairo, i get so used to almost never being given the benefit of the doubt, to be implicitly or explicitly required to prove that i am worth paying attention to. 

when it happened i was in shock.  like i couldnt think of what to say other than, sounds cool.

dont get me wrong there was plenty of lil racist incidents in berlin.  i mean my friend spent the weekend marching against nazis.  and there were people who would give me the suspicious vibe obviously based on my darker skin.  and i got the italian dude telling me how he had never slept with a black woman before, and some ridick about picking up a black prostitute and getting a blow job.  oh and the time i went into the kiosk and was looking at the potato chip rack, and the guy behind the counter pulled out the ‘african style’ chips and handed them to me, and i was like, dude i’m from america!  and he said, oh you are from america, and then he put the chips back on the shelf.  and the time we got physically pushed out of a bar, because a friend said something (in german so i didnt really catch it) about black/white people.  and so on…

but on the whole, i didnt feel like i was in immediate, constant physical danger for simply existing in the world.  nor was i repeatedly reminded of how vulnerable and worthless i am. 

and that was a nice change.