At least I think that’s what it was. But the lasagna had been a little on the salty side, too, come to think of it. And the wine was all gone. I was also still pretty dehydrated after having gotten lost in the Grunewald and all I think. At any rate, all this talking got me thirsty. I was in mid-sentence, I suppose, and walked over to the sink, poured myself a big, cold glass of tap water (Leitungswasser) and drank it.

You could have heard a needle drop in that room at that moment. That’s another one of those things one doesn’t do here. Drink tap water, that is. One buys one’s drinking water here. It doesn’t matter that the quality of the drinking water in Berlin is excellent. Man macht sowas nicht. They were all too polite to explain to me once again how dangerously I was living by doing such a reckless and stupid thing.

The conversation soon picked up again and we moved on to American politics. Now that’s what I would call anything but harmless. Talk about having hurt feeling potential. I filled up my glass again and had another drink.