The Crazy German

On Wednesday my websites worked as usual so I put in a long day of work and then met some travelers for the trice weekly rum and cokes. This is usually the easiest time to meet people. I spoke with people from Israel, Germany, Finland, and the most interesting…a third culture guy. His father is from Argentina, his mother from Bolivia, and he lives in Italy having also lived in those countries for a while. What an upbringing, right?

I enjoyed talking with him the most because his story was different and you know it’s a good conversation when what each person does for a living never comes up in conversation. Likewise, he was not full of clichés like I find with others. For example, he is going to live in an Ecuadorian Jungle town doing some kind work with the people there. But what I like about what he told me is that he’s doing it for himself. For his own experience rather than expecting to “save the world”, which if some of what he does is positive all the better. It’s refreshing to hear this perspective rather than the other in which the person truly believes they will completely improve a town.

I led our group of 4 to a disco around the corner and a bit of fun showing off my intuition. I spotted a group of two girls and approached them with the third culture kid.

“Let me guess…you two are from the United States?
“Yes”

“And you are both here studying abroad”

“Yes”

“At the Universidad de San Francisco”

“Wow, how could you tell all of that?”

I had a good laugh at how easy it is to identify the study abroad students here in Quito. Meanwhile at the disco I did meet an Ecuadorian girl but excused myself after a while and found a German-Asian girl who I taught some salsa (i.e. the basic step). I was interrupted by the pretty German girl we came with who at the time was dancing with the Israeli. In a moment she jumped away from his and then to me. She was pretty but I felt guilty that the Israeli guy had been chatting with her all night. I looked at him with a confused look and he did the same back.

Regardless I danced with her and it was only five minutes later that I realized what a psycho this girl is. Her behavior was really off the wall and I could notice how drunk she had become. I tried to pass her off to the Israeli guy but he had been watching and agreed that she was nuts. So soon enough as I kept trying to get away she spotted the third culture kid with the American girl I had identified before and latched on to him. She followed them around for the next half-hour, literally hanging on to him as he tried to dance with the American girl.