In Timmerberg’s Footsteps

I get good books as presents. Helge Timmerberg three times in the last six months alone, none of them knew about the others and each came exactly once. I narrowly survived the first one with an acute abdominal muscle tear. The second is now lying next to me on the train to Basel. I’m afraid to start.

There is real travelling. And there is the opposite. Timmerberg does everything right, because he does practically everything wrong. He’s not afraid of it. He sees more, asks more, almost never finds what he is looking for – and falls on his face much harder than any stiletto-wearing mountaineer. I’m following in Timmerberg’s footsteps.

The last few months have been another slaughterfest. Funnily enough, work-related slaughter festivals are usually rather anaemic affairs. At some point I wake up in the middle of the day talking on the phone with the end scene from Kill Bill dancing in my head. Then I know: it’s that time again.

I arrive in Frankfurt around midnight. I waddle through the station in search of a nice grindy bar. But the train has stolen all the soul from travelling. Delays are the only thing they care about. The rest is spotless and sterile. Travelling without dirt is like a toilet without stink.

I go outside. Directly opposite is the 24-hour bar Gleis 25. The grubby sign bodes well. The jukebox is called “Big Fire” and sounds like Grisu on a propane shortage. First song: “That’s not 20 centimetres” in techno. At the bar, a very used-up whore asks me if the beer should be as big as me. Gladly.

The Brazilian girl next to her is unhappy about the progress of the negotiation with an old alky. She jumps up and starts dancing wildly in front of me before I even manage to type a word. The first glasses whizz by at low speed. First the whores shout at the men, then the men shout at the women, and finally the bartender shouts at everyone. Then everyone dances peacefully to the Flippers again.

This sequence is repeated several times. A rioter is brutally beaten past me out onto the street and the door is locked. I am free. Guantanamo is the only place on American soil with free healthcare.

9 o’clock in the morning. Basel airport is so cutely small that you keep wanting to say “Yes, where is he?”. A warning cuts through the vestibule. “Suspicious luggage will be destroyed!”. What is the definition of “suspicious”? A mobile phone rings with Tom Jones, “Sex Bomb”, in a rucksack next door. Before the SEK can initiate the emergency blast, I escape through the check-in.

Everything is fine as far as Paris, but when I get there the plane is ruined. Economically, Air Mediterranée only admits this after a 6-hour wait without food. Some Germans are already screaming. There is no transfer to the hotel. 400 lemmings rattle through the night in trollies. After an hour’s check-in and 26 hours travelling, I just fall into bed.

Thanks for the overnight stay, Air Mediterranée! Thank you for not informing me, for the hunger, and thank you for a full five hours’ sleep. At 4.45am I’m off to the airport again and then finally off to Venezuela. I wonder what Air Mediterranée will pay for this mess. If it’s not enough, I’ll give them first place for “Service Air Mediterranée” in Google. Free and immediately.

After almost 48 hours on the road, I arrive on Isla Margarita. The plane is shaking up a storm. Off to the hostel, out to the beach and kitesurfing. Customers and friends: I can’t send any emails right now. Venezuela seems to be blocked. Look for a solution tomorrow. The whole internet is shaking like hell…