Yeah yeah yeah

I used to constantly talk about the overly polite British. And then, like rain on the wedding day, someone who had been swearing love for months didn’t manage to stand up when saying goodbye forever.

Don’t mix “drama” with “culture” , my rationality says. It’s all one and the same thing now, I say, and “I love tea” badges go straight into the bin.

How cultural, I think.

Tribute to Skype

Watch some Gaelic football, my friend from Wales says. Not gonna happen, I say. I thought women like to watch how men kick each other, he says. There are three periods in the history of evolution that I don’t really get, I repeat: 1) when a dog was domesticated; 2) when fireworks were invented; 3) when football was started to be played. Dogs were good for hunting; fireworks were a Chinese invention for scaring Mongol horses; football has always been a reason for a husband not to talk to his wife, he explains.

I’d like to marry one day, I suddenly remember a thought I had tentatively formulated in the past. The first thing I knew back then was my husband wouldn’t be one of those who break windows for basketball. He’d break them for football instead cause he’d be English, I thought. Or Scottish if that doesn’t work. OK you got it - Irish if worse comes to worse. I’d always make him dinner. He’d hate cepelinai cause apart from a few Lithuanians and other Balts (like there are so many left), nobody does. One or two Americans maybe. I don’t like cepelinai either, so I’d make them to express my anger. When I’d want to remind my husband that he’s got to learn Lithuanian. He’s got to respect my heritage and for chrissakes,  it’s high time we moved to Lithuanian, cause that’s where all of my relatives live. And a few friends who haven’t betrayed the motherland yet. Calm down, darling, he’d say. I would immediately become famous in a poor country, but fame’s not gonna bring me happiness. Do I not bring you happinness?, I’d furiously ask. Oh come off it, he’d say and we’d stay in London.  Greetings from East Ham, a Lithuanian ghetto, I’d be writing to you. Visit me and we’ll go for a cup of coffee in Soho. Kisses, Jenny.

Cabarete

I’ll bring you the same souvenir box to the beach every day. I’ll bring you papayas, pineapples and coconuts. I’ll keep showing you the pictures of my children until you let me braid your hair. I’ll become your best friend for a minute if you buy a bracelet I told you was made of larimar but is not.  I’ll hate you and swear at you if you manage to buy a necklace from me for cost price but I’ll be your friend tomorrow again cause you might buy another one for more. I’ll tell you only my cigars are real. Others sell shit. I’ll keep calling you my friend and telling you how I go to church in Puerto Plata until you decide to offer some clothes for my children. I’ll be sincerely grateful and call you my real friend but just before we say goodbye I’ll ask if you by any chance don’t have another hundred note in your pocket.

If I’m from a neighbouring village, I’ll tell you that only locals drink, cheat and use the services offered by prostitues. I’ll tell you about Raymond, the crazy guy who organizes fishing trips and never shows up to pick people up. I’ll tell you I’m not the same. I am the only one here who sells silver.

I’ll show you which beach chairs belong to your hotel though it’s the first thing you found out upon your arrival. I won’t make you sit on somebody’s lap when the 39th passenger gets on my twenty-seat guagua cause I expect you to pay twice for the ticket. I’ll call you Miss England regardless of where you come from so you buy my newspaper.  I’ll beg you to come to my shop just to be polite, though I know you won’t get out without a purchase.

If I work at the reception of the hotel, I’ll tell you you can keep your suitcase in the foyer past check-out time in such a manner that you end up believing I’m doing a favour. I’ll tell you about free horseback riding and kitesurfing. I’ll tell you I can’t believe you’ll have to leave my country (if you’ve given me tips). I’ll promise you it will be sunny tomorrow, though the last time I watched a weather forecast was last year.

If I’m a frequent tourist from Germany, I’ll establish a travel company called Freddie Tours and tell you it’s the only local company with insurance. I’ll lie to you that whale watching is on discount cause it’s the last weekend when whales come out. I’ll hire my dodgy-looking Swiss friend who’ll sit in my office and tell every passer by “hey I’m from Switzerland, I went whale watching with them twice and it was really good.” You’ll probably choose my company cause Germans are known for reliability and we’ll have made a great deal.

I’ll hire a guide who only gives names of villages you pass without any further comment. He’ll forget the real name of “Bacardi Island” but will become very talkative when it comes to reminding travellers to leave tips.

I’ll take you to Samana where all whale trips start. I will have booked the smallest boat available without previously letting you know that all electronic equipment should stay in your hotel. I’ll put you in a boat with nine more naive Germans, Americans and Dutchmen, as well as  a man at the wheel who barely speaks any language including his own. You’ll go far into the sea till you forget how the coast looks like. Waves will be huge as hell and you’ll suddenly discover that you do have sea sickness afterall. Salty water will keep splashing all over the place after you have long said goodbye to your camera. When you can’t open your eyes anymore, the man at the wheel will stop and point in the distance where the whale has finally shown two centimetres of his back.

When you’re back in Cabarete, I’ll come with my souvenir box and remind you that you have promised to have a look, though I know to say the magic word later was the only way you could get rid of me. I’ll tell you I know you came here to relax and enjoy the sun but life is not that easy. I’ll give you free cigars and show you around cause I assume you’re richer than me. I’ll wave at you and offer to jump on my motorbike cause I know thanks is not gonna be enough. I’ll fill your water cup up after every single sip of yours in the restaurant cause I know you might appreciate it. I’ll sing songs and teach you merengue; I’ll bring you candy coconuts cause you’re a bloody tourist and that’s all I need you to be.

The Manual on the Preparations for Discovering the Land of Lithuania

(dedicated to F. who is coming to visit)

BEFORE THE FLIGHT (packing tips)

There are certain things that cannot be found in one or another country (due to different markets and stuff) but as people travel, they discover things in other countries that they would want their markets to offer, too. However, as this is not always the case, there are certain things that I need from Britain, and want to use you as a tool to get them:

 • Thai Curry Paste (Red). Can be found at Tesco’s on High St. (the one we bought the wig at). You’ll see it on the shelf that has different sauces. Should say “Original Thai Curry Paste” on the label (NOT the ‘Pataks’ brand). Costs £2.05 if my memory serves me right;

• Maltesers. Comes in different shapes and sizes, so just grab whichever is available;

• Stowford Press. A can will do (hopefully they are available in cans, if not there’re always bottles). Don’t repeat my mistakes trying to find it in London;

• Everything you can ever find about immigration into the UK after 2004 (for my thesis). Keep an eye on it constantly, please. Maybe one day you’ll decide to visit your mum at work, and then you just type in the word “immigration” into the library’s online catalogue and copy whatever is relevant. I will never ever forget this sacrifice should you get round to actually doing it.

 • Don’t forget your phrase book so you can surprise me again with your interwar Lithuanian.

 

AT THE AIRPORT + ON THE PLANE 

 

pic from transp.lt

There are things that can only be experienced on the route UK-Lithuania or UK-Poland, so please prepare for those psychologically:

• If people at the check-in are hyper-friendly to you, don’t be surprised: you might be the first passenger on this flight to speak English;

 • If you see that you only have one suitcase while all others around you are paying for extra luggage, don’t get scared – they might have bought every second item from PRIMARK and are now transporting them home;

• If you hear songs in a language similar to Russian being played on the plane, keep in mind that it is Russian. Lithuanians are probably listening to the Russian Radio after the announcement just said “switch off all your electronic equipment”;

• If you don’t understand the pilot when he is murmuring his standard speech, don’t worry. Normally you can’t understand him when he does this bit in Lithuanian either. Basically he’s just saying that you will now fly through Amsterdam, then Berlin and Poland;

• If they don’t even bring you a glass of water for free, don’t make much fuss about it. That’s Lithuanian Airlines. If they do, however, let me know and I will apologize for my ignorance;

• Don’t be surprised if you’re the last one to unfasten your seat-belt before getting off the plane. Everybody else will have done it long before the seat-belt sign is off. That’s how excited they are to be home!

• If you say “hello” to the airport official who is checking your passport and they don’t show any reaction, don’t be surprised: you got off in the right country.

UPON ARRIVAL

• Don’t try and excuse your general laziness and tiredness by jetlag – time difference is only two hours;

• Don’t be afraid of my parents and please “don’t feel uncomfortable” around them. Give them a box of Maltesers and they will be more than happy;

• My dad used to speak very good English 20 years ago but doesn’t really realize that it’s gotten a bit worse. Please try not to ruin his beliefs. My mum is a German interpreter/translator/teacher, so she strongly believes that all words in German and English have the same root. When she asks you a question in a German grammatical construction or attaches some English ending to a German word, just pretend it is all fine and ask me if you really didn’t understand something. My sister has just graduated from high school and done her A levels, so her English is good but if she doesn’t know the difference between “fizzy” and “fuzzy” try not to laugh;

• Don’t be shy, always say “sorry” and “thanks” (even when it’s not needed) and thus confirm our stereotypes about the English;

• When you see our cat, start stroking it immediately, so my mum can say: “oh the British have always preferred pets to people”;

• When my mum starts saying all these embarrassing things about me, just calmly nod your head and say: “Nobody is perfect, we the British know that by now.”

• Don’t be afraid to share your impressions about things you find “a bit weird” on the streets and all over the place.

The Festival of Everything

picture from www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

 The Festival of Everything

 

In the middle of October, when squalls of rain are bursting from fast-moving clouds, and first-year literature students are getting ready to read out their poems about the high school graduation in front of the jury of the university creative writing competition, England is proudly counting visitors of literature festivals.

 

The oldest one in the country (“and maybe even in the world”, as they like to say) – The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, established in 1949.

 

Cheltenham itself is a town in Southwest England, which used to be a famous spa resort in the 19th century, and now is advertising itself as “the most complete regency town” and the festival capital. Cheltenham has got about 110 thousand inhabitants. Similar number of people can be found in the literature ticket sales statistics.

 

In the beginning I didn’t really understand how a literature festival could attract tens of thousands of visitors. In the times when teachers complain that the only book kids do open from time to time is Harry Potter, and when a digital book in a book store is not a miracle anymore… No way.

 

I experienced my first revelation, however, right after I had realized that Gordon Brown is coming to open the festival as a “secret VIP guest”. When the Prime Minister, who is far from being popular, appeared on stage, the audience was astonished for one short moment. Meanwhile officials of local councils were complaining to the newspapers that Mister Brown refused to meet up with them to discuss the Icelandic bank crisis and the fate of their investments into Icelandic banks.

 

He apologized for talking about the economy instead of discussing, as he put it, “some great literary works of our country” or analyzing his new book ‘Wartime Courage’, and the credit crunch story went on like there’s no tomorrow.

 

He left Cheltenham busy as a beehive for the ten coming days.

 

While actors were “rapping” Canterbury Tales in the tent, the queue to get Roger Moore’s signature stretched outside almost to the nearest town. While BBC business editor Robert Peston event’s popularity was growing immensely thanks to the credit crunch, the author of ‘Angelina Ballerina’ was enjoying herself surrounded by three-year-olds with ballerina dresses. While Edward Stourton was attempting to determine the norms of political correctness, journalists of health supplements, together with ex-models, were trying to solve the problem of beauty cult.

 

“Call me and we’ll catch up with all the gossip“, somebody from the audience shouted, and it was the least one could expect from literary audiences.

 

While characters from fairy tales were running around the town, the enthusiastic ones tried to get to the big scene to read their poems. On the other big scene Tony Curtis was struggling to understand the Scottish accent of somebody from the audience. While medics were investigating into how allergies could have affected the works of Marcel Proust, Jonathan Dimbleby was telling public that during his two-year trip through Russia he has not met a single person who would believe in democracy. John Simpson was counting how many times he felt a gun by his chest in South Africa.

 

When possibly the most famous French guy in Britain Raymond Blanc was sharing his recipes with the audience, Janet Street Porter was laughing that her book “was published EVEN in Slovenia.”

 

The issue of the credit crunch was raised in each of these events. All by the same guy.

 

While BBC 4 was recording ‘The News Quiz’, you could hear young voices ready for a Friday night feast outside. “What an idea – to record the programme in the tent!” said the host, and you could only try and guess if she was joking. Authors of another popular radio programme “From our own correspondent” got extremely defensive after they had been asked why there is not much reporting from the Baltic States. “If something happens there, we’ll send somebody straight away. Don’t you worry.” I’m not worried at all, I thought. I have simply heard commentaries from France or Slovakia, where “nothing important” seems to be happening either.

 

“What was once a quite esoteric phenomenon – a literature festival – has now grown into an enormous event” – you could hear guest directors and authors thrilled and delighted.

 

Official data reveals that more than 400 authors came to this year’s literature festival.

 

“I’ve always been interested in how the celebrities and the famous faces are creeping into festivals all over, but what is nice about the Cheltenham festival is that you still have a lot of very literary figures that you really want to just hear rather than just gaze at,” said one of the children’s authors.

 

And this was when I experienced the second revelation. Celebrities. Famous faces. Television.

 

If you dictated your autobiography, which you might have not even read, to your secretary, that means you wrote a book, and half of Britain will want your signature on it (especially if you appear on screen not less than once a week). If you have a cooking reality show, they will want a signature on your newest collection of recipes. And because this collection is in other words referred to as a book, you will be most welcome in the literature festival, which quite correctly could be called the Festival of Everything.

 

It‘s hard to define literature is a phrase that possibly every literature student has heard from their professors. What is not so hard to define anymore, however, is a literature festival, which, at least in the UK, is far from the gathering of two poets reading their manuscripts in the light of a fading lavender candle. 

 

Book groups and other amusements

I had never been in a book group or a book club before, but I certainly had heard of and about them. First I heard about them from one of my professors who was German but always pretended to be English. She said that in Britain book clubs are so popular that even Judy & Richard established one in their show. She said that every library has one, and then there are millions of unofficial book clubs because some just do it at home etc etc. Then she gave us some figure, which I remember being pretty close to the figure of Britain’s population, and I thought: wow.

I had also heard about book groups from the series called The Book Group, in which some guy referred to them as “fucking middle-brow. Yuck”. It was by watching the very same show that I found out that book groups are normally not exactly about books (which I could have figured out myself, knowing that there there’s usually coffee and biscuits).

So I had heard bits and pieces about this phenomenal social activity, but I had never heard that when people who join book groups say “Oh I have read this book centuries ago”, they DO actually literally mean a CENTURY.

When I entered the library, I immediately started patting my pockets, looking for the leaflet of the event, so I could double-check if it didn’t say “over 65 only.” But the grannies seemed pretty happy to see me (and three other young people who came with me) there, so I calmed down. We gathered to discuss Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

“A jolly good read!” the bravest one exclaimed. The good thing about old people in the book group, I thought, is that they don’t know how to use internet, so they don’t gather just to quote some universal truths from Wikipedia.

“Oh I thought Sebastian was so delightfully romantic”, another one said and blushed, while others were shyly nodding.

“The more facets you pick up as you read, the more interesting the book becomes”, explained the third granny in an asserting tone, and you immediately knew she had worked as a primary school teacher.

The religious aspect in the book was touched upon, and the discussion about Catholicism was soon in full swing. Somebody suggested that maybe Charles Ryder (the narrator) converted to Catholicism in the end because he found its wicked side acceptable (in Brideshead Revisited Catholics aren’t “true Catholics”). The teacher kindly explained: “That would seem peculiar to adopt religion for such reasons. That is against human nature.”

“I can’t remember the exact bit of the book”, said yet another granny, and pointed at her left hand side neighbour. The neighbour didn’t seem to be able to find what she needed, so the woman started desperately looking for the quote herself. She found it and started quoting after five minutes, when the topic of the discussion had long been changed.

Another one indeed surprised everybody by admitting that she has the book at home but never read it. She still came because she really wanted to, and now she was even more tempted to read the book. “I’m with her”, her husband excused himself, and we moved to the discussion of the screen adaptation of the film.

“Well, I certainly believe the film should have been called Brideshead rather than Brideshead Revisited, if they really skipped the first bit of the book” (which is basically there for the sake of the flashback that follows). Some people laughed, a few others modestly nodded, and you could see how proud the woman was of her recourcefulness.

“Oh I will definitely go and watch the movie, even if it’s only to grumble about it,” said the enthusiastic granny to whom the authorship of the phrase “a jolly good read” belongs. “I just hope all of the actors are British.”

It was also her who answered somebody’s question whether all of the readers are from one and the same group. “These people over there belong to the elderly people’s college book club, these people belong to the library’s book group…”

“And I belong to my wife”, said the grandpa, and by that he revealed one more truth about book groups which I hadn’t heard before.

Counting up to twenty

“Britain Britain Britain. Discovered by Sir Henry Britain in 16010.”

“It’s complicated”, I would always answer to people asking “but why Britain?”, after I had just seen them wearing sunglasses and summer clothes in pictures from Greece and Monaco (and even bloody Prague!). If, of course, the “purity of language” argument doesn’t work (which it shouldn’t, considering how brutally, as my dear fellow American wants it, this language has been butchered by Kilts, Cloves and Criminals).

“Oh I like so many other things here,” I say, and turn the volume down so I could hear myself better. Michael Crawford is singing some song which doesn’t contain the lyrics that are in its title. “Counting up to twenty.” The fairy tale about the clever Magical Mr. Mistoffelees soon ends and, before I realize it, I do start counting.

I like to see the guy with a map of UK behind his back on BBC news shocked that “we are likely to have a second dry day in a row.”

I like that it is “generally believed” all around Stratford upon Avon that Shakespeare indeed existed.

I like that everything “may contain traces of nuts”. And that ice-cream is also suitable for vegetarians.

I like when old people smile at you in the streets and call you ‘my love’, even though the warmest feeling they may have is the feeling of pity “for a poor girl from Eastern Europe.” I like how people say “sorry” ten times in a sentence, even after you have just stepped on their feet.

I like British Television. I like that the UK is among the very few countries in the world whose comedy shows are actually funny (in many countries it’s rather news that, presumably unintentionally, are).

I like complaining to everybody that British chocolate cannot be compared to Swiss or German chocolate because it doesn’t really dissolve in your mouth, is too sweet and too sugary etc etc etc, and then buying a seven-bar-Cadbury pack.

I like that a sandwich is only a sandwich if it’s triangular. I like funfares and double-decker buses. I like to watch twenty young chaps, whom the driver has just asked to please sit down if they want to continue their journey, desperately trying to come back to 30-pints-of-beer-free reality. I like when Brits stay in their own country for stag parties.

I like how ‘Zoosk’ warns you that ‘you are missing out flirts because you haven’t indicated your location’. I like the ambiguity which the word ‘gay’ brings into ‘Brideshead Revisited’. I like how you can support Young British Artists by buying shortbread in ‘Marks &Spencer’. I like that longbread doesn’t even exist.

I like how British media warned the nation of soon-to-be-increasing levels of crime right before Romania and Bulgaria had joined the EU. I like how they blame Poles for killing the Queen’s swans for food. I like the expression “our tiny island” when in Europe, at least population-wise, only Germany and France are bigger.

I like to think that naked girls with symbolic dresses on Friday nights are indeed not freezing. I like it that you can start booking Christmas parties in summer (I mean, the season which is comprised of June, July and August). I like Guinness with blackcurrant syrup, but I guess that’s Irish.

I like that Brits divide people into enemies and friends according to the results of football matches. I like how everybody gets excited about biscuits (which are in fact cookies). I like reading reviews in ‘Spectator’, even when they are about books I haven’t read. I like how women in my office scream that ‘Strictly come dancing’ is back. I like that Brits can say ‘sure’ and ‘of course’ without having a clue (or without wanting to have a clue) of what you are talking about. I like political irony. I like to have my umbrella with me. I like when people grow out of the age when they can only be friends with the people “who have the same style”. I like to all of a sudden get a maximum amount of points in Facebook’s ‘How British are you?’ test. I like green shoes, ‘Primark’ paper bags, Jeremy Paxman and coffee… I like you if you are still reading this.

Cheltenham

“If that poor girl hadn’t broken her arm, she would’ve gotten silver in the Olympics, but now she got nothing,” an old granny tells me after having stopped me by the entrance to the Town Hall. She looks exactly like the granny from ‘Little Red Riding Hood’’and makes it sound as if our conversation is so natural that I have to almost start feeling like she has been expecting me with a cake in a wattled basket.
“Yeah,” I say.
“So where are you from, luv?”
“How do you know I’m not local?”
“Oh, I can tell by the way you say ‘yeah’, luv.”
“Lithuania.”
“Oh, is that near Russia?”
“Well, it is not THAT far away from Russia…”
“I don’t understand those people in Russia. They got their independence, I don’t understand what they want now, I just don’t understand it”.
“You mean the war with Georgia?”
“That one, luv, yes. I just don’t understand those people, they got their independence.”
“Well, it’s not exactly independence that they want…”
“So how long are you here for, luv?”
“Three months.”
“Oh what a shame! Three months!”
“Why shame?”
“So what’s the weather like in your country, luv?”
“It’s kind of like here.”
“It’s raining here all the time but a few miles away you can see people in bikinis! Unbelievable!”
“So are you saying that the weather in Cheltenham is worse than in the rest of Britain?”
“Oh no, luv! Take care!”

She turns left, crosses the road and I feel like I’ve just taken a computer-based IELTS test, in which further questions are independent of your answers. After a few conversations like that you kind of feel like you’ve been talking all day long cause your tongue has been moving, trying very hard to insert some gap fillers (brilliantfantasticsureluvdarling), but in the end of the day you still feel like you’ve come to this country “to spend some time with yourself”.

So is England for you, luv. A country where sunglasses should seem like an unnecessary invention or a snobbish fashion extreme. Where summer clothes could be on sale all year long cause nobody needs them anyway. Where it only rains twice a week – first for four days and then three days for the second time. Where your boss seems to be trying to squeeze in 10 sugary epithets within 10 seconds while on the phone, at the same time making such faces that you can only hope that the customer does not have some kind of a video-phone. A country where you buy one and get a second one for free.

What is Cheltenham like, then?

“In the 19th century it had the most famous spas in the w…. in the country,” explains the woman to her husband, who is looking at some ‘Chel Ale’ posters in the Cheltenham Art Gallery (the expositions in that gallery seem to have been updated in the 19th century, too).

Cheltenham is a city that can be divided by the thoroughfares for shopping. One for chain stores and another one for specialist shopping: antique, jewellery, porcelain shops and designer studios.

It is chick and famous for ridiculous cost of housing. A town with a great divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, as some reader on BBC’s ‘have your say’ pointed out.

And because it’s so rich and expensive, there aren’t many immigrants, so Brits themselves have to take jobs in fast food restaurants.

There are, of course, a couple of dozen of Poles. An English city cannot do without them. I still haven’t figured out what attracts them so much to this island. Possibly phone shops offering cheap calls to Poland.

And the size of Cheltenham?

A journey from the outskirts to the city centre does not take long. About 150 g. package of ‘Smarties’. Unless, of course, somebody decides to stop you to chit-chat about the Olympics. (Britain has just given up the third place on the medal table.)

Home

After fifteen hours on Polish roads, I am finally home (if you think mentioning roads is boring, you’ve obviously never seen Polish roads). They say “home is where your heart is”, but I am pretty sure my heart is somewhere between the lungs, enclosed in the pericardium or whatever they call it. So I get confused.

My country welcomes me by giving this long forgotten allergy to absinthium right after we cross some symbolic booth, which would be called a border control post if it was last summer. Thanks to Mr Schengen, my passport can stay in the trunk together with the material for unfinished essays.

It’s six in the morning and you can easily tell that the guy in ‘Lukoil’ gas station does not get bonus depending on how nice he is to customers. He takes money through a little window and explains that the toilet is in the forest. I’m happy I’m not a tourist from abroad and I will not have to keep this story on my mind before I spill it on international travel blogs.

It’s foggy and it looks like cows are sleeping on big puffy clouds. It’s only now that one realizes that orange sun in many paintings isn’t just a kitschy trick of landscape painters.

I keep looking at the pictures that Frau Fritsche normally gives to those who leave the building, and I try to keep cool. All of these slogan-type of truths keep running through my mind. You’ll come next year. I’ll come next year. The world has become very small. I’ll send you pictures. I’ll write letters. I’ll be friends with you on facebook. On LinkedIn. And not only those and Myspace. I will follow you on Twitter. I will want to be your friend on Pounce. I will be your buddy on Flickr and I will want to subscribe to your channel on YouTube. It’s easy these days, you’ll see…

I don’t want universal truths anymore. I want my truths. I want you to keep singing arias from American musicals to me everyday. I want you to call me at 2 a.m. and tell me a story about the professor who stayed in the room with broken radiators when it was -10 outside, and refused to leave because of certain affinity with the student from his native country. I want you to keep trying to prove me that ‘some’ implies one or more even though now I know that it really does (literal translation of ‘some’ into Lithuanian prevented me from believing in it before). I want you to make chicken curry and tell me about your dream in which a chicken almost pecked a hole in your head. I want you to have coffee with me every Sunday. Go far a walk to the park of Schloss Charlottenburg, where ladies do pirouettes when smiling for cameras (influence of the Schloss?). I want you to have two ‘Cosmopolitans’ instead of one with me in ‘Zeitlos’ and go see Tenesee Williams at the English Theatre afterwards. I want you to shout ‘Enemy’ every time I bump into you in the corridor. I want you to laugh with me at ‘banausentum’. I want you to run through the forest with Turks to see the game on a big screen at Siegesäule after gates had been closed. I want you to help me create headlines for the website. I want to take a picture of you being interviewed by ‘RTL’. I want you to dance with a chicken again. I want to invent songs with you. I want to have tea with you every night before going to bed. I want to kiss on the roof…

And they say it’s always easier for those who leave rather than those who stay. Ironic. Like r-a-a-a-in on a wedding day. It’s like seeing signs of restaurants every two kilometers after you hadn’t been able to hold your hunger and eaten at McDonald’s. It’s like going to Wrocław and finding out that it’s more German than most cities of Germany itself (especially Berlin). It’s like a woman from the house administration who becomes nicer to you after she feels the smell of ‘Domestos’ coming from your bathroom but then sees dust on the coffee machine…

There’s a big hammock hanging in the apple trees. There’s Murakami, waiting to be read. There are cold empty churches that you can sneak into when the sun becomes too intense. There are friends who want long talks and canoeing…

I want to tell them I can’t, not yet, my heart is still not here, but then I remember it is actually in the pericardium, between the lungs, and I am pretty sure my biology teacher from primary school would confirm that. I only need somebody to confirm that as long as my heart is there in between the lungs or some other inner organs, it travels everywhere with me.

Vanity Fair

The last time I experienced ”uncomfortable silence” was three years ago. Somebody had been talking to me for three minutes with this low scary voice before I realized it was a guy from my primary school. I had never really spoken to him before, apart from pulling each other’s hair or taking part in these water wars between boys and girls in grade 3. Plus his voice hadn’t gone through mutation at that time so there was no way I could actually recognize it now.

We talked about some of the classmates from the primary school but eventually realized we only remembered the names of like seven of them, let alone last names. After we had gone through “the list”, I stopped talking for a bit and tried to decide which bus to take next. My classmate decided to deal with the “uncomfortable silence” and said:

“My hamster was ill last week.”

I didn’t know whether I was supposed to be sad about the illnesss, or happy that he actually had a hamster. That he loves nature, animals and is this “normal person”, who will eventually live in this neighbourhood where children build sand castles in the yard and dads say “Hello honey” to their moms when they get back from work.

I felt similarly confused about what to say everytime I would go to ‘Safeway’ in Portland and have all of the cashiers comment on my purchases and talk about their lives for hours as if they suspected I was a secret shopper and they needed to be extra nice to me. I got rid of the idea of being taken for a secret shopper though after this one cashier girl shitted about her boss for like ten minutes. I didn’t say anything and I didn’t make the “list of scenarios of how I could have responded” ever after.

Then, of course, a few instances in elevators, when you have to say “hello” after a person enters and then have to deal with a few minutes silence, performing some stupid reflex actions like looking at the mirror or checking your phone (which you had just switched off), before you can finally say ‘Tschüss’.

And then yesterday. Somebody stopped me in the street close to the house I now live in and asked if I knew where some pizzeria was. I didn’t. But instead of admitting that, I looked at the person, started pointing at all four directions and said: “Maybe there, there or there.”

He looked at me trying to hold the laughter and I felt it was about the right time to tell him something about hamsters.

There were no hamsters but, before I managed to say anything else, I saw this Berliner bear who had painted his every second tooth brown, so he could look even more scary laughing at me next time I am in a situation like that.