To make the post shorter, this is part 1 of a longer story. Read part 2 here. If I really think about it, lobster basically tastes like a fancy shrimp. Back in Riyadh, a piece of lobster the mere size of my thumb was part of a € 70 six course meal I never would have gone for myself, had it not been upon an invitation which would have been rude to…
observations
Faith in Humanity Restored in Havana
Quickly stuffing away my Cuban convertible pesos that I had gotten in exchange for a bunch of Mexican currency, I had saved my Euros for another time, I took a deep breath and started looking for a taxi at the airport in Havana. I had barely any time to pick one of the yellow cars to approach when I heard someone asking me where I was going. It was a fellow traveller,…
The Earthquake After the Drill
At 11 a.m., on the 32nd anniversary of the Mexican earthquake of 1985, there was the customary earthquake drill, so people could practice for a real-life situation. Same procedure as every year. At 1 p.m. we agreed to have lunch. At 1.20 p.m. hell broke loose. I sometimes can’t help but think about the situations I find myself in when the most inconvenient things happen. When the skyscraper, a very noticeable one…
Observant Thoughts From Mexico By Someone From Berlin
I have lost count of how many times I have used the sentence other countries, other customs on this blog. I may have done that so many times that it is almost like a cliché by now. On the other hand, at the end of my fourth week in Mexico City I notice that some things are really different from Berlin. In a good way. In a way I find so interesting that…
About Poetry
It was a small gathering and to be brutally honest, it was only a matter of coincidence and good luck that I remembered the little note in my calendar. In school they used to tell us that if it didn’t rhyme, it wasn’t poetry so when she told me that in her writing, there was no such thing as a metrical pattern, I was yet again convinced that my whole school life…
Torn Between Home and Elsewhere
When I walked the narrow, nostalgic streets of Lisbon, listening to the sounds of Portuguese TV programmes escaping through open windows and watching the yellow streetcars pass by, I thought to myself: “This would be a great place for a honeymoon”. When I visited Madrid two summers ago, I started thinking about what a nice idea it would be to come back for an ERASMUS semester. How come I rarely experience such…
Lecture Hall Noise: Concerto Nr. 1 in E Major
Some scattered thoughts on all the things you can hear inside a lecture hall instead for the actual lecture: Some people type so vigorously on their laptops, you might think their lives depend on it. Maybe in a way they do. Two more weeks until finals. While the crowd has just now managed to get seated, another group comes in (10 minutes late) like some animals who are finally let out to run…
Waiting For E.
The clip-clop of horse hooves was as common of a sound in this part of town as the melodies of words spoken in all possible languages ranging from Arabic over Spanish to Russian, Turkish and Chinese. Two brown horses were pulling a carriage down the road. Inside, two girls were laughing and chatting, two bottles of beer on the table in front of them. There was something surreal about this scene. The giant,…
The German Space Bubble
During Psychology class in junior year of high school, our teacher talked about the psychological “phenomenon” of the so called space bubble. The space bubble defines how close or far away a person stands from you while communicating or interacting with you in any other way or form and the size of the space bubble varies from culture to culture. So some people may stand very close to you while talking and…
Dandelion Skeletons High in the Trees
My café au lait came in a big white bowl. Finally things start being worth their money, I thought and happily took it from the waitress. My first serving of coffee in about two months and in such a big portion. It must have been a good day, even though I had to learn that the office hours of the enrollment center of my university were listed wrong on their website, meaning…