I am being driven to distraction by the silence I have finally been granted. I hadn’t realized how important peace and quiet had become to me until I had bucket loads of it over the last eight months and then had it temporarily taken away. I have always liked my quiet time, to be sure, but have never minded having people around. Unless they are full of nothing worth talking about but which is talked about anyway. It is peaceful now and my wayward and mostly not-worth-talking-about-thoughts are coming home to roost. I guess the only difference is that no one is forcing you to read this.
I went for a walk today, to see the neighborhood and walk down to near the body of water that is known here as the Rhein River. It is a cold, but not frigid day, around 8 Grad Celsius or so, but the sun came out and it was perfectly pleasant as long as you kept moving. I walked by the old buildings, along cobblestoned streets and sidewalks and found what used to be a semi-old (by our standards old, by European standards semi-old) castle, and then maybe it was later a champagne factory (or so the words over the huge doorway would have one believe) but now appears to be an office building. I only surmise this because nobody in it looked particularly regal or the least bit drunk. I have to assume they were simply bureaucrats of some sort, waiting for the end of their Friday so the weekend could start. They would go home and perhaps act as regal and as drunk as they can get away with, without passer’s by gawking into their windows.
Along the small harbor, which is not much more than a nice spot where part of the river diverts off the main Rhein and the larger boats can’t and won’t come, I walked past the various yachts and smaller boats still in the water. In the summer, this stretch is very busy, with joggers, people out for a German stroll, cyclists, screaming children looking for an ice cream cone, and people who know what to do with these boats. Now, it is forlorn and quiet with only the most hardy joggers and wanderers out for a go of it.
I came along a mobile used bookstore: really just a closet-sized metal bookshelf with doors to lock it at night, and browsed for something interesting. There was no one there – just a metal box where one could put donations for people in Africa to help them get glasses and have their eye problems treated. Somewhere in Burkina Faso. I found a Nicholas Sparks book in German, making sure it wasn’t the one I just finished reading in English, along with a couple other small books, and put 5 Euro in the can.
Efforts have been made throughout the neighborhood here on the water at various types of Christmas decorations, and I enjoyed walking along peeking into people’s windows to see what decorative themes they had decided on this year. Most individual decorative efforts are still inside one’s house, including directly on their large windowsills, and are meant to be looked at, so I wasn’t being perverse or anything. Little by little the decorations are venturing onto the outsides of the homes in a more aggressive, perhaps American inspired manner. Subtle outdoor holiday decorations probably don’t really exist anywhere, I suppose. Once you put a fake Santa or snowman on your wall or roof, you have basically given up on subtly. I liked the Santa hanging a bit crookedly from the sign for one of the local pubs. He seemed in the right frame of mind, or at least pose, for hanging out around a pub. I hope someone turns him upside down before I leave so I can get a photo. That is the proper yuletide cheer I traveled here to see, after all.
I am doing my best to spend my last Euro so I have to get some more. I have no idea what I am spending, although I think 1 Euro = roughly $1.40. Since I am thinking in Pula, where 1 Pula equals about 15 cents or so, so this is truly a dangerous country to be shopping in because anything that only costs 1 of something sounds cheap, even though it isn’t if that something is a Euro. My brother will be able to fill me in later when he sees the Visa bill, but maybe I won’t want to know.
I can’t buy much more though, because the one bag I brought to fill with such things is about full. Most of what I want to bring back to Botswana is food. We will see what they say about this at the airport. I suppose if they want a bunch of money for it all I will just leave it there in the airport or sit down and eat it all in front of them. Even if I get full and say I want to save the extra and bring it to the starving children in Africa, I don’t think they will be convinced.
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