[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFox61M_0Fw[/youtube]

I went to a bar, around the corner from my house, with a friend. It was Friday night and quite crowded, so we joined a table with two more couples.

At some point, we went out for a smoke. One of the females near us asked if she can come with us and keep us warm. She asked my friend where he is from, then told us where she was from, and then asked me where I was from.

I gave her my usual and charming answer: “I am coming from the peaceful land of Israel.”

There was a mili-second of silence, she took a drag from the rolled cigarette, and start to say: “sind Sie Ju..”, and stopped.

We kept talking for a few more minutes, and then went inside. After ten minutes my friend excused him for the toilet. She took the opportunity and started a conversation. “You know,” she tapped the area above my elbow gently, “my grand grand father….”. She stopped. “Maybe it is not appropriate, definitely for a pub on a Friday night.”

The friend that was sitting across from us, asked me where I was from. I gave him the exact charming answer. His eyes grew wide, and his mouth took the shape of an egg. He was staring at me for five seconds, then turned his face away, then looked at me again, then turned his face again, this time to the other side, then looked at me again, his mouth moving without making any voice.

I was staring at him the whole time. Waiting for him to strike some chord. I was trying really hard to be polite, but after 15 seconds I turned my face away. I think he had stared at me for another hour.

There is not much I am writing about here, though I have many insights about my wild going around town at Friday night. I will save it to another post. But this is, many times, what it feels like to be an Israeli in Berlin.