Mozart's

Tutoring just started back up. Loyal followers will remember tutoring from one of my very first posts, so I won't bore you with the details. The important point is: after tutoring, some of us tutors go across the street to Mozart's. Mozart's is an unexpected place, and a bit hard to describe. It is right smack in the middle of downtown DC, across the street from the church where we tutor, World Bank, Metro Center and Mc Donalds. It's a German deli/bar/restaurant/knick knackery. The deli section sells regular deli stuff, German food, german trinkets, German candy, German magazines (that look at least 20 years old, lending credence to the rumor that the front door is really a time machine), German groceries, German Beer...you get the idea.

I like the bar. It's a neighborhood bar. Sometimes there are drunk people sitting there, and I've sang songs with them (can't remember which songs at the moment). There are rarely tourists because, as I mentioned, this place is unexpected and nobody who didn't know it's there would find it (which does bring up a certain chicken/egg question regarding their customer base). There is a resident musician who is usually in the dinner room next door doing a karaoke style performance where he plays his guitar and sings, accompanied by the recorded bass and accordion lines. He dropped by our table this evening and said: "I am here now to play you songs for you. My name is Tim. I am from Georgia, the country. I play Georgian music, Russian music, German music, American music and my own music. What would you like me to play for you?" Our first request: play your OWN stuff, perhaps a baudy drinking song. He gladly obliged and sang a nice song. He said it was about drinking, and we had to take his word for it because we don't speak Georgian, the country. The song sounded more like a love song than a drinking song to me, but love....drinking....I can see the connection. Next song was a Russian gypsie song. That was good fun. Finally, the request was for an American song. Tim: "Which one?" Us: "Play your favorite." So he played 500 miles. Classic Peter Paul & Mary. Karin & I knew it, but our other comrades did not. I pardonned Sharmila, the Canadian, but I'm not so quick to forgive Clark who is a good, Yankee boy in his late 40's. He has no excuse. Anyway, as it was getting more and more surreal, we paid Tim $7 to go play for somebody else. No, we tipped him generously and thanked him for his music. It was, after all, unexpected.

Then, on the way back to the Metro, I found a coin in the road. But not an American coin (this is the second non-American coin I've found in DC). It is so mangled from the miles it has travelled, that I cannot tell what it is. It is copper colored, just a hair larger than a quarter, has a picture of a woman and I can make out the word Elizabeth. The back is so worn that all the letters and pictures are completely scraped off. I've never seen a coin this worn out. Taylor thinks it's an English Tuppence. I don't know. I just hope they'll trade it in at the bank.