Wow, it’s cool here

I’m finishing my Spanish course in Barcelona. It was hard to keep up and still do enough travelling. Tonight is my last night. We go into town, almost the whole course, me and Dave. The landlady of the first bar looks like a madam. The Black Sheep is packed. The first signs of the night are starting to appear and nobody knows where they’re going.

The lack of a plan irritates me a little. Our plan was to go out properly one last time in Barcelona. Dancing. You’re supposed to do what you plan, so I urge them to get going. Suddenly there are twice as many of us as before. I head off into the middle of nowhere. Everyone asks for directions at some point, but no one can tell us exactly where it is. So we settle down in a square.

Beer sellers come and people pass by. Bars close. We stay put. We don’t want to go anywhere, we are simply here and now in this square. The Frenchman Matthieu says I should please stay exactly as I am, but there’s nothing I can do about it anyway. I teach a Memphisian the meaning and correct pronunciation of the term “Mei is do geil”.

Some traces of the night deepen, others are erased, thrown over, laid out anew. A woman walks past, grins and says: “Don’t you remember me?” My first reaction, as always: “No, I don’t know you.” But I should. Tine was the bar manager at my local bar in Regensburg, alongside the six-armed Ayurvedic Judith.

I’ll end my journey with a nice story. I was afraid of coming home to an old home where I no longer knew anyone. Now I realise: I don’t remember the people I knew. I may remember their laughter, but when they suddenly stand in front of me somewhere in the world, they are strangers. A homeland where every stranger is a potential friend: that must be the most beautiful journey in the world.