Germany “I was thinking, how did ‘a sleepy country of poets and dreamers,’ and the most highly educated nation the earth had ever seen, how did it yield to such a wild, such fantastic disgrace? What made its people, men and women, consent to have their souls raped.” Martin Amis Porridge for breakfast and we…
Category: Germany
Nohfelden
Germany “A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life.” Hermann Hesse Another day of driving. The road to Alsace. We stop just outside of Waldorf for a picnic lunch. If there is a more Germanic town than Waldorf, I have never seen…
Horneburg
Germany “To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.” Georg Hegel A day of driving in the rain. Breakfast at a service station and an early dinner. Chicken with roasted vegetables. We drink an inexpensive bottle of Sangiovese from Umbria before retiring early to read. I finish Cat’s…
Back to Budapest
“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy at home.” Anton Chekhov A reasonable drive ahead of us today. We head out for a run and get in some breakfast and a few coffees. On the road at 8.30 am. It is a six hour drive to Budapest. About half an hour…
Schlafen
“How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense” Franz Kafka I sleep and sleep. I slept through the night. When dawn broke through the curtains, I went back to sleep. When Shell held me, I went back to sleep. Dreamless, deep sleep. I can’t remember sleeping like this. “Sleep…
Running Man
“Running in the wind, in the pollen and dust, a flower in flight” Vladimir Nabokov I slept poorly. Our air conditioning system kept turning off, making it a particularly hot night. It’s a cool, overcast morning, and all I want to do is run. An odd feeling for someone who does not enjoy running. Or…
Demographics
“I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.” Simone de Beauvoir I wake up with a slight hangover. It is early, and Shell wants to go for a run before it gets too hot….
Bad Füssing – Germany
“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.” Henry Miller Up early for a run. It is a warm morning and it is tough going. I can’t be bothered with breakfast. We walk to the town square and I order a coffee that comes…
Spitz and the Wachau Valley
“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only…