Elias

I decided that it was time to start preparing my stomach for India, so I decided to pay a visit to a nice looking Indian restaurant in Alicante.

When the waitress came out she asked me if it wasn't cold, and when I told her that I'm used to it she asked where I was sleeping.

When I told her that I was sleeping in my car she was confused. She didn't understand why I hadn't booked a hotel, but I guess she assumed that I couldn't afford it.

When I continued the conversation and asked her about her life and about India and told her that I'm going to the wedding of a friend in India in March she seemed even more confused.

It turned out she had moved to Alicante just two months ago, which lined up with my feeling that she was trying to form a connection with me.

My impression was that she secretly thought that if she could save me from the street I might turn into a good husband, but she also knew that I was not going to stay in Alicante and probably also sensed that I didn't find her very attractive.

The food that I had ordered was delicious an even though I wasn't hungry it might easily qualify as the best experience of the day.

When the waitress came out again and I was already finished eating, she commented “Oh that was fast” as if she was assuming that I must have been really hungry.

What I loved was that my mixed status signaling seemed to work. People see in me more and more who they want to see.

A random drunk guy dressed like a captain walked by and laughed loud at me as I gave him a big smile.

A guy from Senegal came by and gave me a fist bump after a brief conversation.

When I was ready to pay, the chief waiter came out and I'm sure the waitress had told him about the conversation with me and he wanted to get his own impression.

As if he was assuming that I might actually be illiterate and only pretending to read a novel he asked me what type of book I was reading – a novel, a thriller, crime?

I explained to him that it was a fictional story set in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic, and apparently was the original full-length version of what's commonly considered the best novel from Erich Kästner and that a friend had given it to me saying it might be the best novel he had ever read and that I could start to sense why he said that.

He looked at me as if he was still not convinced and as if he'd like me to read a sentence to him just to prove that I'm not crazy.

He didn't ask for that and I just laughed silently within myself.

I paid and left and just when I had stated waking, Quino texted me back and I knew where I was going to spend the rest of the evening.