The Craziest of Days

Ok, today did not begin with any intentions or pretense of greatness. I woke up late and didn't really get moving till about 4:00. So, I decided to go to the German capitol building, the Reichstag. Before arriving at the Reichstag, I was amazed at the downtown area (known as Mitte). It was really cool and very high-tech looking. Since my brother tells me my posts are somewhat lengthy (guess he doesn't read many blogs), however, I'll not belabor a description of Mitte and get to the heart of today's adventure more quickly.

So, I'm up on the cupola of the capitol (a really stunning structure that you can see on my flickr page for which there is a link on the home page of my blog) doin the George thing, takin' loads of pictures, when I'm stricken by an errant thought. I wondered how much of the current structure survived from the original building. I did what any tourist would do and approached a person in uniform to inquire. Upon rephrasing the question in German (so much for it being an accessible tourist destination), the woman, let's call her Christina (her actual name, lol), nicely explained that none (what a shock!!!) of the existing building was original. After expressing my utter surprise at this fact, she decided to surprise me even more and invited me to follow her into the security office (one of many). Ok, this is when things begin to get really weird.

On the way to the office (only 2-3 meters from where we had been standing), she tells me that she has a book, on the history of the Reichstag, that is quite special and is only given to employees and State guests. While I was quite excited about this unexpected boon, I was also thinking that the public drinking thing, "not sure it's working". She seemed like she may have had one Bier too many for lunch today. Anywho, she begins closing the blinds and shutting the door so that people cannot see inside the increasingly claustrophobic security booth. Remember folks, THIS IS AT THE CAPITOL. So, I'm beginning to get really weirded out. I'm thinking OMG, is grandma really going to put the moves on me? More seriously I was thinking, OH FUCK, I'M GOING TO BE STRAIGHT UP ARRESTED!!!!

Grandma then calls for someone to replace her while she goes to her locker ("with a friend" she actually tells them over the secret service looking walkie-talkie device) to get some pills. After about 7min, two FEDERAL POLICE officers arrive at her door to relieve her. Now I knew I was just minutes away from handcuffs. I've seen this shit too many times in movies and it never ends well for the hapless black man. With a straight face, she tells the two federal police guys that she's going to her locker and taking her "friend" with her. Did they think we were going to get it on? That grandma had her a fine piece of...........? I shudder to finish that sentence. Just can't bring myself to imagine it. Anyway, the two federal police guys (who really were cute, so I was hoping any arrest would include some kind of cavity search by one of them) were looking at me like, "yeah right this black dude is your friend". Even their stares had heavy german police accents.

But surprise of surprises, they let us go. The slightly tipsy seeming grandma then proceeded to take me through the super secret path to the women's locker room. Some of the areas were open to the public, others were not. The whole time I'm just waiting either to be arrested or for Ashton Kutcher to show up and tell me I've been punked. And hoping there'd be some type of cavity search included there too.

Anyway, grandma finally gets me to the women's locker room and I say "I'll wait out here". Of course she says, "No, no, there's no one here. Come on in". I ask you dear readers (especially my gay sisters) what would you have done here? I'm seriously wonderin at that point whether grandma has concocted this whole story just to get my juicy butt in the bowels of the German capitol and put the moves on me. I was looking for the way out but we'd come through about a dozen locked doors and I had no idea where in the hell we were. I took the prudent path and followed her in.

She went to her locker and after some fumbling, pulled out...................the book. Ok, so she was a really nice mature German woman looking to do a big favor for a very good german speaking black American guy as opposed to the creepy, intoxicated, manhood stealing German beastress I thought she'd turn out to be. The story ends with one last reminder of the nature of the journey I'd just been on. We went out an employee exit (and did not return to the suspicious but hot federal police) and I had to be let out of two impenetrable doors with pneumatic locks on them. Oh!! When I think of the things that might've transpired in that building. But alas, I have a real cool book and had an extraordinarily iconic Reichstag experience.

Aufwiedersehn' Y'all