Why beating around the bush if you can be brutally honest? Say the Germans. There would be murder if we told each other the truth about what we think about each other. Tja. German are not in for small talk. Why would you waste your time making conversation, if you can liberate yourself and all the people around you by telling them what you think?
Way back, in this ‘Wohngemeinschaft’ in Köln, we had weekly sessions when we told each other the truth. We were sitting around the table when I gathered all the courage of the world and told one of the girls we were living with that I couldn’t stand when she was cleaning her knife by licking it – my mind just went into overdrive and projected this image of the knife cutting straight through her tongue. She didn’t thank me for my honesty. In fact, she asked me who the h…. I thought I was insulting her that way? She got so upset that I thought that instead of licking the knife she was going to stick it right in between my ribs. Luckily, she didn’t.
In between all the work and hustle, in between the mechanics of life that we have to deal with, in between all the ‘to do’ stuff, in between this endless tiredness. I wonder, what would he do now? What would he say? What would he write? What would he answer? How would he react?
If he could.
Whatever it would be. It would be beautiful.
When his two friends arrived today who will be running the Hamburg marathon on Sunday way ahead of me, there was a huge big beautiful smile on his face.
Dreamboater.
Beautiful.
Auf jeden Fall.
How to germanise yourself, 9/10:
Hospi-Tales 
I am too spanish in relation to “talk”…. I will walk mentally with you on Sunday and Padráig too.
You’ll have to take you pick for tomorrow, Ana. It’ll be a fast and furious run with Cian and Andrew, and, indeed, a walk with plenty of time with myself:)
Hello Reinhard,
Best of luck to you and your friends for the marathon tomorrow.
I will be out tomorrow morning along the Königstrasse in Altona to cheer you on. I plan to stand just after the Jewish cemetary on the right side of the street and I will be wearing a light blue jacket.
Best wishes to Padraig and your family.
Shirley
Hello Shirley,
thank you so much for your good wishes for Andrew, Cian and myself for tomorrow! I’ll be looking our for you. (I’ll be way back in the ‘field’, if there is any ‘field’ left; Cian and Andrew will be in the first third, I’d say.) We should arrange to meet some time – once I’ve recovered from tomorrow:)
Best wishes,
Reinhard
I was looking out for you this morning, Shirley, but didn’t see you – I probably should have told you what I was going to wear. I’ll email you to see if you want to meet up at some stage.
The very best of luck to Andrew, Cian and yourself in tomorrow’s marathon.
Mary and Robert
Thank you so much, Mary and Robert! It’ll be a walk in the park for Andrew and Cian, hanging onto the end of my fingernails for myself… 🙂