My first inkling that this wasn’t a normal coffee shop was when the armed guard at the atrium asked for my passport and directed me to the stern couple standing by the metal detector.

“I’m…just looking for the coffee shop?” It came out somewhere between question and statement. Google had directed me here and given the shop a pretty good rating. I just needed somewhere comfortable to wait until the Altes Museum opened at 10.

“Ja, ja,” she said, smiling. “But the metal detector first.”

The couple at the metal detector weren’t smiling. Everything out of my pockets, they said. Hat off, computer out of my bag and in a separate bin through the x-ray machine. I was on the verge of saying, “You know, I think I’ll skip the coffee,” but the nice lady with the gun still had my passport and I was worried that if I backed out now, she might stop smiling.

Of course I beeped going through the machine. Of course. The man frowned, sighed, grabbed his portable detector and directed me to “assume the position” while scanning me and muttering under his breath.

“Okay,” was all he said, then waited, standing and watching with what I took as general disapproval as I replaced my watch, stuffed coins, wallet and phone back into my pockets, and stowed my laptop.

The nice lady with the gun handed me back my passport and pointed me to the back of the atrium.

At this point it felt prudent to ask. “Sorry – uh, what is this building?”

“Federal Foreign Office,” she said, still smiling.

“And it’s…okay? Just…for coffee?”

“Yes, yes, it’s okay.” She gave me a little shooing motion to send me on my way.

The empty coffee shop at the back of the atrium beckoned.

Sure. Why not? 

(It was, by the way, a damned fine flat white.)