I’m going to let you in on my two mantras, which really are words to live by: Dance like no-one is watching, and Never say no.
I think everyone who spent a little time with me knows that I’m not shy of dancing, it’s my form of expression. It’s not that I’m such a good dancer (I have terrible hand-eye coordination) or that my moves are so sweet everyone would want to join (quite the opposite, actually). But when I dance like a maniac (pun intended), it makes me incredibly happy, moving my body parts as if they were independent of each other, no rhythm, too much force and most importantly far from elegant. Oh and on top of that, singing on top of my lungs without ever knowing the lyrics, still doesn’t hold me back from being the loudest one. I don’t take myself too serious, I’m just dancing – <em>like no-one is watching</em>. And you might think it silly, but you know, when I unleash my dance beast, it allows others to join and, believe it or not, more times than not, others love it. They might make fun of me, they might imitate my sweet moves, but you know, they are having fun, enjoying themselves and allow themselves to live a little, what more could you ask for?
And part of dancing like no-one is watching is to never say no. Now, I know, this is a difficult one, because sometimes you just have to say no, but see, the thing about saying no is, that if you do it too often, no-one is going to ask you anymore. I usually say yes to everything, and figure out how to go about it afterwards. Of course, this is not the best way to organize your life, it makes much more sense to really evaluate whether or not you have capacity and interest to say yes or no, but I’m just happy to be included and that’s usually why I say yes to (almost) anything.
That’s also why I found myself on a plane to Berlin early morning last Monday. I spent 32 hours in Germany with my bestie who flew in from Vienna, while I flew in from Oslo. 32 exhausting hours filled with laughter, talking and little to no sleep – oh and wonderful German breakfasts. But let me back up here a little.
About a month prior to our trip my bestie asked whether I would be interested to see Ed Sheeran’s concert in Berlin, which – who in their right mind would say no to this? Unsurprsingly, less than 24 hours later we managed to organize tickets to the concert, confirmed flights from Vienna and Oslo to Berlin and booked a lovely hotel. On top of that we reserved two 75-minutes whole body massages at a spa and had almost all other details ironed out as well.Since we’ve known each other, that’s how we’ve always operated: figure out what we want and go for it, no questions asked. Time differences and geographic distances never bothered us, granted though not having a time difference makes it easier when we’re having an email or whatsapp conversation… but that’s beside the point.
So as last Monday neared, my bestie and I were getting ready for a small reunion, which meant packing backpacks with loads of different chocolates and almost nothing else, because sometimes chocolate is all you need. Especially when you haven’t seen your bestie for about a year and only have so many hours together. Needless to say, we were both over the moon excited to finally see each other again.
Our flights arrived at almost the same time in Berlin and from there we conversed without taking a single breath. We took the train into Berlin, found a nice little cafe and brunched for a solid four hours before it was time to hit the spa. After all, conversing this much can be exhausting. Now, I don’t know how your spa experiences usually go, my experiences are limited but up to this point they did not include walking into the women’s locker room and being flashed by several (!) men, also didn’t include having several people of various ages walk past me butt-naked. That’s not a problem in itself, I’m all for #freethenipple but it would have been nice knowing about this beforehand, so we wouldn’t instantly revert to 14 year-old teenagers when seeing naked people… (and yes, totally our fault for not emailing the spa beforehand and asking about their naked-policy).
The massages went well enough, other than ending up with enough oil on our skins, that we basically could have made enough Greek salads for decades and still would drip oil… Once we washed off most of the oil, we sat in front of the spa, daydreaming and being excited for the evening to come, when we noticed some commotion around us. People were stopping, taking photos of someone parking his car, which we thought odd but didn’t pay more attention to. Until that someone got out of his car and walked towards the entrance of the spa.
Low and behold, it was Xavier Naidoo. You might not be familiar with our teenage-years hero, but let me tell you, he is an amazing German singer. Here is the one song, where I actually know the lyrics in my sleep, because I must have heard this song a million times in the first year it came out and about 10 million more times ever since. And yes, this is RZA in the video with him! I also leave this song here, for your enjoyment, because German is a beautiful language and in case you were wondering what he was singing, “I don’t know anything, that’s as beautiful as you” and the way he sings it, really makes me believe, that I am the most beautiful that ever walked the surface of this planet… And yes, I have some sweet dance moves for this one.
we slowly made our way to the arena where Ed Sheeran was playing that night.
Now, I don’t know how you feel about Ed Sheeran, but let me tell you, he was simply amazing. He rocked the stage, just a man and his guitar and he would sing and dance and mostly just enjoy himself and it was simply great. The impact he had on his fans was just mesmerizing. At one point, as he was singing “Don’t call me baaaaaby, unless you mean it” (his voice forever ingrained in my brain), all couples around us (and there must have been 20 in our 5 meter radius) started confessing their love for each other, hugging each other, kissing and what have you. Unless you were me and my bestie, we were dancing, throwing our hands in the air and singing as loudly and wrongly as only someone that doesn’t care what others think, can.
The concert was simply amazing, it’s also where Ed Sheeran first announced, that he will be back again, soon and I think, so will we… (We’re somewhere in the back, there, if you look real close, I’m sure you could spot us…).
So after a crazy German breakfast, some real oily massages, spotting Xavier Naidoo and getting to see Ed Sheeran perform his heart out, we called it quits for the night and returned to the hotel.
The moral of this story is, that having said yes to this amazing trip, I got to see my bestie and Ed Sheeran and I got to take a little break from my everyday life. I got to dance and sing so loudly that I could barely talk for the week to follow and I had so much fun! And after all, in stressful times, like these, when deadlines are nearing, hormones are going crazy and we are all longing for a great summer break, some fun is all we need. So, never say no to dancing like no-one is watching.
A bird loves a fish 
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