And What Now, Europa?

As I went out of my residence main door, today, I picked up a new copy of the local newspapers from the stack that I found every morning on the hall table. I'm getting used to read few sentences, titles and captions at least, while I walk to the parking lot to take my car and get to work. A homeopathic training: few words per day. You never know, my German could improve a bit.

So I got the picture of the happy "prime" couple coming out of the polling station and made all my best to understand what had happened in UK the day before. I was actually wishing a new last-minute miracle could have taken place during the night. Just like the one occurred two weeks before here in Austria. And I actually mistook the message and went to office relieved.

I discovered only after lunch, when an English colleague came to say "Hallo" on his way back to Cambridge, that I really understood what had happened.

I don't know what to think. The Old Continent is putting so many question marks on its future, that mine would be totally insignificant. Still, I have my list of open and unresolved action points to take care.

Landmarks

The door to door distance between Graz and Milan is exactly 700 Km. The first time I drove it appeared to me as never ending. I had never been up here and everything was new. The uncertainty, the unknown behind the bend, beyond the tunnel were at highest levels. 

With time, I have learned to split the track in several fractions, each distinguished by some kind of recognizable landmark: a refueling station, a route change, a long tunnel, a lake, the billboard of a selling point, etc. I concentrate on these to make the trip seem a bit shorter.

On the Road

In the hall of the students' residence where I'm staying in this beginning of this experience of mine in Austria, there's a large bookcase where people passing by are invited to drop something from their latest readings. The shelves have just begun to populate, as the building was only built one year ago. Yet, there are already some good things to pick and read, provided you had time and you were able to read from German as well.

I'm not used to stop by, as I'm always on the run or because the hall it's always crowded with so many young exuberant students that stares at you from the moment you get out of the lift, as you were a freak or a martian. Still, there are times that I have to go downstairs and wait for the laundry to finish its job. Then, in the attempt to show indifference, I stop in front of this new born library and begin listing one title after another, till I find something interesting.

So I came across this German edition of Kerouac's "On the Road" and started reading the well known opening ... and taking notes.

(Made and sent from my mobile)