On Sunday, my machine gun Spanish teacher Andrés was celebrating his 27th Birthday. He invited me over on Saturday night for drinks and pizza and to go out to a club afterwards.

I met a bunch of his friends, all really great guys, and had another intensive Spanish lesson. I realize it’s much harder to follow a group than a one-on-one conversation, but I think I got the gist of most of it.

They might remember me as ‘the silent German’, but by the time I had made sense of the conversation and pieced together a sentence in my head, we were on a different subject already. It’s like the race between the rabbit and the hedgehog, if you know that story 😉

Anyway, after a few drinks we went out to a Palermo Club called Niceto, passing a number of other places in Palermo where people where queuing up. The weather was hot and Palermo buzzing with people… It was impressive.

Inside, they had a funny theme of dancers dressed up in the weirdest fashions, from Cleopatra to harlequins… The crowd was pretty mixed, a bit young – or am I really getting old? Their music was great, Eurythmics, Depeche Mode… all heavily remixed, but great to dance to.

It would have been such a great night, if I hadn’t felt that cold that was about to hit me. I had practically no sleep the night after the Milonga visit, couldn’t nap during the day, and the constant change between heat and air-conditioning took its toll. As usual, I feel it in my throat, my tonsils swelling, a sure sign of trouble.

So I left early, I only danced to a couple of songs… But it was great to be out with the boys, and meant a lot to me that I was invited into their circle.

I spent the next three days pretty much in bed, with a towel around my neck, as I did not pack a scarf, gargling with salt water and taking pills from the pharmacy.