write.as/jonbeckett

I deactivated my Tumblr account a few weeks ago, and then posted on Facebook that I had done so, because I didn’t want to lose touch with anybody. A friend messaged me, and told me “so and so says you’ll be back – so does whatshername”. I laughed, and agreed – yes, I probably would be back.

Guess what. I’m back.

The truth is, I’ve missed the people I used to catch up with. Yes, the platform itself annoys the hell out of everybody that uses it (often to the point of deactivation), but the people are awesome – or at least the people I’ve been sharing stories with for the last however many years.

Of course this is me we are talking about – so I haven’t just created an account. I’ve migrated the whole of this year in from the mighty Wordpress, and gone through every single post with a photo, making it all look just-so. And yes, I was supposed to be getting on with something else at the time. If only there was an Olympic “tinkering” event.

A wonderful friend from the Wordpress world likened me to Seinfeld yesterday. I’ve only seen half an episode of Seinfeld ever, so have some homework to do. I’m not sure where I’ll find any episodes that I might download legally, so will tell the internet police to look the other way for a few minutes.

I gather Seinfeld had a knack of turning every-day situations into entertainment. I wonder if he ever made ditching and re-opening blogging accounts funny? It also strikes me that telling stories about everyday life requires anything at all to happen in your life – which could be a problem, seeing as daily life for me typically revolves around filling the washing machine up as many times as possible.

Changing subject entirely, my eldest daughter is 17 today. I’m still wondering how that happened. In my head she will always be the little girl in flared jeans and a stripey polo-neck, running around the garden in her wellington boots, talking to her dolls. Of course she’s also the manga fanatic that drags me to comic book stores, and to otaku events in London – primarily as “the bank of Dad”, but also because we laugh at the same idiotic things as each other.

She was always the least sure of herself, the one who worried the most – the one that watched others from a distance. Now she is seventeen, and I’m wondering where the years have gone.

The last two years have been brutal. While her peers forged personalities and ventured out into the world, she retreated. Home became a prison of sorts, and the future often seemed out of reach.

And yet here we are. Seventeen.

A place at college, new friends, new hopes, and new dreams. The last few months haven’t so much been a turn-around as a re-invention. A re-boot. A second chance.

Here’s to the future, whatever it may bring.

I re-installed Tumblr on my mobile phone last night. I’m still not sure if it was a wise thing to do or not, or if I will use it much. After deactivating my account a few weeks ago I didn’t really miss the platform as a whole – but I did miss a few of the people I only knew through the platform, if that makes any sense. I guess we’ll see how it goes. Every instinct tells me I will deactivate it entirely within a few days.

In other news, I have spent the entire weekend washing and drying clothes. Alongside that, I replaced the hard-drive in our eldest’s computer this morning and re-installed it for her. I left her in charge of running Windows Updates – we’ll so how that goes (probably really badly).

I wonder if anybody would notice if I sneak off to the corner shop to buy some chocolate?

p.s. I already uninstalled Tumblr

It’s Saturday morning, and I’m finally home. The washing machine and tumble dryer are rumbling away in the background, the kids are out at football matches and school fundraisers, and I’m slowly pulling the house back towards some semblance of normality.

I arrived home late yesterday afternoon, after flying out of Frankfurt at lunchtime. The flight itself takes a little over an hour, but you still need to add on the journey to the airport, getting through check-in, security, and passport control, then security and baggage reclaim at the other end, followed by a couple of hours on trains to get home from the airport. You’re suddenly looking at six or seven hours, door to door.

On the way home I called my other half, who informed me that Miss 16 was supposed to be cleaning the house and washing clothes. I walked in on a scene of devestation – she hadn’t lifted a finger all day. I was beyond furious, and she knew it.

Anyway!

While waiting in the departure lounge at Frankfurt I picked up some presents for the rest of the family. Each of my daughters now has a small cuckoo clock – they are all attached to the fridge in the kitchen at the moment, ticking loudly, swinging pendulums back and forth. It’s reminiscent of the scene from the movie “Hook” where James Hook is surrounded by ticking clocks – or the scene in Back to the Future at Doc Brown’s house (where Einstein is fed automatically, and Marty plugs the guitar into the ridiculous amplifier).

A couple of hours after getting home we turned around and wandered to the nearby school, where the local radio station was holding a fund-raising “quiz night”. Our intrepid team started out with the best of intentions, but got rather drunk rather quickly. We came fifth out of sixteen teams. I’m amazed I have no hangover this morning.

It’s Thursday evening. I fly home in the morning. I’m sitting in my hotel room once again, listening to the rain pitter patter on the window, and figuring out what time I should leave in the morning to get to the railway station, before heading to the airport. I guess I can worry about that in the morning.

I finally checked out the German restaurant around the corner this evening. Only it wasn’t German, but kind of was. I suppose a story is in order.

The rain hasn’t let up for two days now. I got soaked to the skin on the walk back from the office to the hotel, and changed clothes before setting out for something to eat. Given that the rain only seemed to be increasing in strength, I threw all ideas about wandering back into the city centre out of the window, and ran to the restaurant around the corner.

After a few seconds attempting to communicate with the lady in charge of the restaurant, I figured out that she spoke no English. I also figured out that she was Chinese, and so was the restaurant. The decor gave it away, but the chinese chef at the back of the restaurant was also a pretty major sign. I smiled. She smiled. She waved towards a table, and I sat down. Who needs words?

I was given a menu – written in German – and wondered what the hell any of it said – this was going to be fun. Thankfully Google Translate can take photographs of written text, and translate the whole page for you in a few moments – and that’s exactly what I was in the process of doing when the lady came and stood over me. I held a finger up to indicate I needed a minute, but that apparently means something else in China, because she grinned, and remained standing over me.

I panicked, and pointed at something that looked fairly innocuous on the menu, and guessed when she asked me something else – replying “Beer?” – she said something else, and I nodded hopefully. While she busied herself with dealing with whatever I had just agreed to, I re-opened Google Translate.

Noodles, with fried beef, and vegetables. The relief was palpable. Also when the giant glass of beer arrived at my table, I felt I had won some kind of secret lottery. Kudos to Google Translate by the way – it’s abilities to translate written pages of text as you drag your fingers over the words are magical.

The meal was wonderful. As good as any Chinese meal I have had anywhere. Towards the end a plate of grated carrot in some kind of sweet chilli sauce came out – I didn’t understand a word of the description, but I imagine it was to cleanse your palate. It worked.

The strangest thing happened while I sat eating my dinner. A german family sat down in the restaurant (thus far I had been the sole customer), and made their order. I didn’t understand a word of it, so busied myself with eating the huge mound of noodles, beef and vegetables that had just been deposited in front of me. Imagine my surprise when their food came out, and seemed to comprise various cuts of steak, chips, and vegetables. What? Something suddenly occurred to me – I turned the menu over. The reverse side had traditional German dishes on it. I recognised a few of the words. Google Translate confirmed it. Dammit!

Oh well. Maybe next time (and therewill be a next time – probably very soon).

Rather than attempt to summon the staff to pay, I got up and made my way to the counter. I spotted the bill and counted out a note plus too much change – so I might get a note back instead of yet another handful of change. Without a word exchanged, the lady behind the counter understood exactly what I was doing, and smiled a huge toothy grin while handing me a note in return.

Phew.

Following dinner I continued on through the now torrential rain to the nearby supermarket – the same one I have visited numerous times while staying here. While looking around the various bottles of wine, it occurred to me that not only are meals in restaurants vastly more reasonable than at home, so is the wine. Both cost perhaps two thirds of comparable purchases at home. I’m wondering if it’s to do with taxation, or if things are just cheaper in Germany? I have noticed there is far less choice over here though – at home we tend to have gigantic supermarkets with produce from all over the world on offer. The range in the German supermarkets I have visited is far more limited.

So. One more night. I have wine, chips, chocolate, and orange juice for the morning. Apparently I can already check-in for the flight via the internet, so may amuse myself with that in a minute. Here’s to taking chances, walking into Chinese restaurants that we thought were German, and communicating with people we don’t share languages with.

This morning began with the wail of a fire alarm in the hotel at 6am. Given that I only fell asleep at 2am following a snap decision to listen to “Chess in Concert” at midnight, I imagine today will be sponsored by caffeine, coffee shops, and tall cups of cappuccino. I’m sitting in Starbucks opposite the main railway station in central Frankfurt typing this.

This is the second time I’ve been staying in a hotel when a fire alarm has gone off in the night. The first time was many years ago – perhaps the strongest memory was one of the reception staff leaving her room ahead of me in the corridor, dressing herself as she ran. No, it was not a travelling strip-show in reverse, in case you were wondering – it was all very above board, panicked, and bleary eyed.

After watching a fire engine arrive – remarkably quickly – and the crew run into the hotel to do their job, the alarms silenced and we all trudged back to our rooms. Perhaps 500 of us. Mercifully the rain that had been falling all night paused for the duration of our stay on the pavement – somewhat fortuitously, because I picked up a warm sweater, but no coat. I did think to grab my passport, wallet, and phone, but not my work computer. I wondered if that was telling while shuffling around outside among everybody else. How do we make our choices in an emergency?

I have no doubt the fire alarm was tripped by some idiot smoking pot in their hotel room. I can’t imagine they would have felt any remorse either – people that cause difficulty for others rarely see outside their miopic bubble.

So. This morning I have taken a different route to the office. As mentioned at the start, I’m sitting in Starbucks opposite the central railway station, about fifteen minutes on foot from the office. I’ll give myself twenty to get there. While wandering along the main street towards the city I stopped at a supermarket and bought lunch. The longer I spend here, the more brand names I learn, and the more easily I’m reading the language. The letter combinations are so markedly different from English that I cannot read by inspection – I’m having to read words twice to really take in the letters, and form the sounds in my head. I’m slow, but I’m getting faster each day.

While walking through the steady rain this morning I realised once again how much value there is in walking the streets of a foreign city. There is so much to take in – the signs, the brand names, the road markings, the people – the behaviour of the people. A girl with red highlights in her hair passed me in a business suit while appoaching a road junction – she smiled. I wondered where she was going – what she did for a living.

I need to shut this down for the moment. I have to drink half a cup of coffee, and then make a move. Places to go. People to see. Hours to keep up the pretence of being clever.

Somewhere in the region of eleven hours pass.

I’m sitting in the hotel room on my own once more. The day went well. Another day ticked off. Another day closer to going home. While climbing the stairs to the fourth floor in the hotel this evening it occurred to me that I crossed the line today between it being fun, exciting, and interesting, to it being a slog, and somewhat lonely.

On the evening I arrived I unpacked clothes into neat piles in the room, and have been packing them back into the bag each day as I wear them. I had one extra of most things, in case some kind of disaster befell me – I always do, and it never has (touch wood). While working on-site I tend to wear exactly the same things each day – khaki trousers (which will last three days), and a clean white shirt, socks, and underwear each day – all identical. Some might say it borders on obsessive compulsive, and it probably is a little, but it works, and makes life simple. I don’t have to choose. On evenings I wear jeans, and have a clean t-shirt for each night. The t-shirtsare different.

In-between writing I’m sipping orange juice bought from the supermarket down the road. The supermarket is called “Rewe”, and seems to have branches open throughout the city, dotted here, there, and everywhere. It’s much like supermarkets at home, except there is no self-checkout, and there is an entire side of the building devoted to dairy products. I’ve never seen so many different types of milk – it doesn’t help that I can’t read the labels. For all I know, the Germans may well talk about milk in the same way the French talk about wine – “Oh, I’ll have an Alpine full cream, September 2017 please” or rather “Oh, ich werde eine Alpine volle Sahne haben, September 2017 bitte” (thank-you Google Translate).

While writing this, two German gentlemen are having a discussion in the next room, and I can hear almost every word of it. Given that I’ve not heard a word so far this week, I’m wondering what on earth is going on. They are probably catching up on what each-other’s families have been up to – but given the naturally more agressive delivery of German, they could well be having a massive argument. Instead of “We took the children to the coast this summer”, they could well be shouting “You can stick that chair right up your arse”.

Anyway. Enough rambling on about nothing in particular. I’m not bored, honest.

Written at 9am in the morning while perched at a coffee shop table among the skyscrapers of central Frankfurt, and posted at 8pm the same evening while sitting in the hotel, listening to rain dancing on the windows.

When I went to bed last night, I left the hotel window open – it’s force of habit. At home the children curse me for walking around the house opening windows on a morning. The open hotel window was probably why I woke so early this morning – by 6am the room was filled with the sound of the city waking around me.

I scraped myself out of bed by 7:30am, had a shower, re-filled my backpack with everything I might need for the day ahead, and caught up with email. By a little after 8 I was kicking my heels, wondering what to do with myself. I didn’t have to be in the office until 10am.

Without really thinking, I put my coat on, picked my bag up, and walked out of the hotel – off towards the office. The journey took almost exactly as long as Google predicted, and left me with over an hour to kill. Should I just sit by the river and read a book? Or wander along and look for a coffee shop? The search for a coffee shop won.

Here’s where I learned something about Germany – or more particularly about Frankfurt – there are hardly any coffee shops. I had to walk the better part of a mile to find the one I’m sitting in – a Starbucks in the heart of the financial district. At home there are coffee shops on every busy street corner – here they simply do not seem to exist. You might imagine – with this Starbucks being a lone outpost in a bustling city – that it would be overflowing with people, queuing for coffee as they do at home. You would be wrong – it’s almost empty.

My meeting is at 10am. I’m really beginning to wonder if the business hours are different in Germany – maybe the coffee shop is empty because people have not arrived for work yet. During the walk here through the city streets I noticed how quiet it is – compared to London it’s almost deserted. Maybe it’s just me – maybe London is the crazy place, and everywhere else is normal – maybe I’m just used to a different level of crazy than everybody else.

It’s been a long day. A very long day. The alarm didn’t burst into life at 5am, because I woke at 4am, and didn’t really fall asleep again. I had fragments of dreams, but then snapped back awake every few minutes – checking the clock each time. Eventually I wrestled the mobile phone from it’s charging cable on the bedside table, disabled the alarm, and snuck out of bed – creeping downstairs in the dark to have a shower, get dressed, and put on the clothes I had laid out so neatly the night before. I glanced in on the children as I passed their rooms – fast asleep with their mouths wide open, like they had landed that way from some altitute. My late father-in-law used to call it “the sleep of the just”.

By 6am I was being interrogated by a lovely middle-aged lady on the first of four trains, who couldn’t believe how much a return ticket to Heathrow Airport cost. She apologised as she processed it, and I explained that it was twice as much as either of us expected because it was Heathrow. It would almost have been cheaper to get a taxi. She busied herself for the remainder of her leg of the journey with giving a female passenger the inquisition about her grandchildren. I wonder where the line lies between “showing an interest”, and “being down-right nosy” – I don’t think she knew either.

At 7:30am I arrived at Heathrow Airport, checked my bag in, and passed anonymously through security. I tried to figure out while waiting in line what causes the staff to pick people out for full body scans. I walked up to the X-Ray machines with my belt, wallet, watch, and whatever else already in my hand to dump into a tray, and was about to step into the full body scanner, when the security guard waved me straight past. Maybe it has something to do with being prepared? I had after all pulled the laptop, kindle, and phone out of my bag and pockets without being asked – as I dumped them in a tray, the girl handling the trays asked “anything in your pockets?” – I did a quick hail mary, grinned, and said “I don’t think so!?” – she grinned back. Maybe they can just tell if people are being subversive? If there was a spectrum of people from “Hugo Agogo” (bad), through to “Dudley Do-right” (good), I would be off the end of the Dudley end of the scale.

Once in departures I found myself with a couple of hours to waste. I’m not entirely sure why they want you at the airport two hours before international flights, but they do – so I am. If that makes sense. I watched a TV show on the Kindle while sitting among the sea of people watching the departure boards. I wasn’t really watching the boards – more sitting, and gazing at Cameron Howe in the latest season of “Halt and Catch Fire”. She’s very distracting.

Finally the flight was called, and I joined the wrong queue. I’m good at that. A moment later I guessed my mistake, and fed back into the instantly immense line of impatient looking travellers. I couldn’t quite understand their rush – every seat on an aircraft is booked individually – it’s not like you’re going to miss out if you’re not first in the queue. The same thing happened when we reached Germany – everybody got up like their trousers were on fire as soon as the seatbelt signs switched off. Why? They couldn’t GO anywhere. They all stood in the walkway for ten minutes until the plane doors were unlocked. Idiots.

Actually – that’s another thing. Why can some people not seem to manage to sit down for an hour? The flight to Germany is an hour. For some reason – known only to themselves – a great number of passengers got up and ran for the toilets as soon as the plane had taken off. They had been on-board for no more than fifteen minutes. Idiocy. Absolute idiocy.

It goes without saying that I loved the flight. Although I had the Kindle with me, I spent the entire time looking out of the window, watching the clouds zip past, and taking photos. At one point a rather lovely air hostess tapped me on the shoulder to offer me sandwich or a cake (I chose cake), and then failed to understand me when I said “juice” for a drink.

Once landed in Frankfurt the bio-metric doo-dads in my passport worked perfectly, and I skipped through security without a question. Minutes later I was reunited with my bag, and trudged off in search of the railway platforms. Last time I visited Frankfurt I got a taxi from the airport to the city, and paid an arm and a leg for it. This time I decided to be rather more brave – and was saved by the ticket machines on the platform which could be switched to English.

Another half an hour, and I set out on foot through the middle of Frankfurt towards the hotel – or hostel, as it should probably be known. I’ve written about how I ended up booking into a hostel elsewhere, so won’t go back over that story. I will say though that the hostel experience is markedly different than a hotel. Sort of in a good way, but also in a bad way.

The check-in desk was manned by two guys in their early twenties wearing blue t-shirts emblazoned with the word “TEAM” across the back. They both seemed able to speak three or four languages fluently – I was immediately impressed with them. They also seemed to have the patience of a saint, dealing with people who couldn’t speak any of the languages they could.

While waiting in line for people ahead of me to check in, an overweight middle-european gentleman man strode straight past the queue, straight to the desk, and started arguing with the staff while they tried to process everybody else. I couldn’t understand a word of it, but it seemed to be about the cost of the rooms, or the number of beds in a room, or the number of rooms – something like that. He kept pointing at himself, shouting “Oneburst past me and started accusing everybody of pushing past her – including me. He was the stereotypical American college kid (sorry for tarring so many with the same brush – I’m sure every country has the same group of kids), paid to go wandering around Europe by wealthy parents, and eager to mouth off about anything if given the chance.

Something in me snapped.

“Excuse me – I’m just standing here, patiently waiting – I didn’t realise you were in the queue because you were sitting over there – of course you can go first”

“I’m not in front of you – she was – and that guy over there pushed ingetting visibly upset – this was obviously normal behavior for him. I began to wonder how many fights he causes – but then something occurred to me. He only started throwing the accusations once she returned to him. In front of her he was loud, abusive, and strong – when separated from her, he was nobody. Some people are strange.

“But that guy pushed in” (he was nearly shouting now).

I turned around to face him.

“Forget it – you’re checked in – calm down!” – I grinned. He suddenly changed personality entirely, and grinned back before picking up his bag and wandering off after his friends. I noticed that everything on his back was brand new. New rucksack. New tent (never used), new sleeping bag (never used), all manner of gadgets and tools – new out of their packets. You can make your own assumptions about that.

I think the people behind me in the check-in queue breathed a sigh of relief when they saw how quickly I checked in. I had a booking, I paid by card, a receipt was printed, and I was in. Done. Inside a minute.

Wandering through the hotel (remembering it’s a hostel), I wondered what horrors I might discover, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Yes, the hallways are a little tatty, and the doors and stair-wells are very “functional”, but the room is actually very nice. Very light, spartan, plug sockets next to the bed, spotlessly clean, en-suite bathroom where everything works. I suppose I shouldn’t really have been surprised, but I was. There is even free WiFi, and it’s pretty fast.

After unpacking my bags, I opened the window to let some fresh air in, and took a look at Google Maps to figure out where I might eat dinner. It was still only late afternoon, but even if no restaurants were open yet, I reasoned I might find somewhere to eat dinner later. While googling, I discovered the Australian sports bar I ate at during my last visit has ceased to exist – or at least it has moved. It’s a shame – it was a great place. I may have to go in search of it later in the week to find out if the internet is lying to me.

Ten minutes after leaving the hotel I found myself wandering along an adjacent road, reading restaurant names as I passed them. A German restaurant I had been looking at on the internet appeared to be Thai, which threw me somewhat. I’ll wander back tomorrow night to have a look at their menu. Knowing I was half-way to a nearby supermarket, I carried on anyway.

I had all the intentions of bringing the food I bought at the supermarket back to my room, and pigging out spectacularly. That’s not what happened though, because fate waded in and changed my sails at the last moment. While wandering along the street behind two backpackers who were laughing about something salacious (you could tell, even though they didn’t speak English), I had to dodge my way around some railings to reach a crossing that would take me back towards the hotel. As I did so I looked sideways, and realised I was walking past a wonderful Turkish restaurant. The menu looked amazing, the entire place was spotless, and the waiting staff were infectiously enthusiastic. They didn’t have to twist my arm much to make me stay for dinner – being absolutely honest, the conversation pretty much went something like “Would you like a table?”, “Yes please”.

In the interests of accuracy, the first person I didn’t speak to spoke no English, so he shouted across the restaurant to summon a lovely young Turkish girl. She asked me if I would like a table, and I could hardly say no at that point, because they had already gone to all that trouble (stop laughing – I’m not that easily swayed, honest – well – maybe a bit).

You know that whole “sliding doors” thing – about chance? I witnessed that this evening. The restaurant was wonderful, the staff were wonderful, and the food was amazing. After finishing eating I was fishing around in my pocket to find my wallet when the waitress silently appeared with a steaming glass of Turkish tea, and a smile.

I’ve never drunk Turkish tea before. I think I’m a fan. While sipping it I noticed an elderly man amble into the restaurant and sit with the newspaper and a glass of tea. I wondered if he was a regular, or perhaps even the owner. He poured three measures of sugar into his tea, and captured any serving staff that passed in conversation. Everybody seemed to know him.

I know I promised to eat German food during this visit, but the truth is that Frankfurt is an international city – it’s filled with international restaurants at every street corner, but very few German restaurants. Iwill return to the one in the adjacent street later in the week, but if tonight proved anything, it was that the path less traveled is just as powerful as it’s reputation suggests – as long as you keep your eyes open, and notice the whacking great restaurant on the street corner you were about to walk straight past.

It’s a fairly normal Sunday morning – the younger children have gone to rugby training, the washing machine is on, clothes are already hanging on the line, piles of folded washing are slowly assembling on the dining room table, and I’ll be getting the iron out in a while to start ironing clothes straight into a suitcase for the flight to Germany tomorrow.

This is going to sound slightly bizarre – I’m purposely packing clothes that have no wording on them. No nerdy t-shirts with clever messages. While in Germany I want to remain largely anonymous – and wearing a national team rugby shirt, or a nerdy t-shirt with writing all over it is a great way to signal to the world where you’re from, and let people form preconceived impressions about you. Of course this also means people will presume I’m German, and witness my clueless gaze as they launch into conversation with me. I really should learn a few more words than “good morning”, “good evening”, “yes”, “no”, and “dry” (useful to buy wine).

A few years ago I worked on a project where one of the organisations involved flew a number of German staff over for the better part of a year. They took English lessons while they were here as part of their working day. I got to know a few of them during my time on the project, and it tore up a number of the preconceptions I had. While talking about travelling the world with a friend one evening, he said something that has stayed with me – people are just “folk”, wherever they are – we all worry about the same things – we all laugh at the same things.

Change of subject.

I’ve been continuing to dip into and out of a virtual world on the internet called IMVU all week. I never seem to find enough time to make any friends within the system, but my sporadic visits did open my eyes to a few things – like some people essentially living within the system. Perhaps the best example happened when I walked into a virtual bar, where a number of avatars were dancing to a country song. I bought a pretend cowboy hat, and strode onto the floor like the worst version of Woody from Toy Story imaginable.

“Hi”

A girl dancing at the front had said hello to me! This was progress, because most of the conversations I had seen were teens repeatedly saying “hey” to one another, without actually starting any sort of conversation.

“Hi!”, I replied – realising I was falling into the recursive teen “hey” conversation.

We actually had a real conversation though – I explained I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, and was randomly visiting “rooms” within the virtual world, finding it difficult to make head or tail of anything. Eventually the conversation turned around to the real world.

“So what do you do?”, she asked, dancing alongside my expert dance moves (which were identical to hers, given that everybody gets the same animation – THANK GOD – imagine if my real “skills” had been on display).

“I’m a software and web developer”.

“Oh. Cool.” (you could almost see her avatar’s face glaze over)

“What do you do?”

“This”

“What do you mean? This?”

“This. This is what I do. IMVU”.

I was kind of lost for words, and the conversation didn’t go much further – mostly because another girl arrived on the dancefloor that knew her, and their conversation turned around to virtual boyfriend troubles. Yes, you read that right – you see this a LOT, and while I find it endlessly amusing (and I really shouldn’t), it made me realise how seriously some people take the whole “virtual world” thing.

One lunchtime at work I logged in, picked a busy looking place, and ran onto the dance floor to join everybody else.

“DON’T TOUCH MY SISTER MISTER!”

Ok. A girl dressed as a stripper had just shouted at me. Apparently I was not allowed to touch some other pretend person in the room – I didn’t know who, and wondered how people that don’t exist can “touch” each other. I started giggling at my desk, and a co-worker asked what I was laughing about.

“Oh nothing – you wouldn’t believe me anyway”.

I will admit more than once this week, I’ve wondered if the real people behind some of the avatars – particularly the more spectacularly handsome or beautiful ones – are actually 200lb truck drivers called “Billy” with bits of food stuck in their beard.

Anyway.

The strangest thing has happened through the week. I’ve kept logging in each day – almost dogmatically – to see if I might find anybody interesting – and I have. Last night, somebody appeared out of nowhere and started talking to me (it’s one of the things you can do in this particular world – a bit like the Google “I’m feeling lucky” button). I tried this particular feature when I first joined, but quickly gave up. You are landed in a coffee shop, sitting opposite a random stranger, who invariably looks at your profile, and then exits before you even get a chance to say “hello”.

I found myself sitting opposite a girl avatar dressed as some kind of Manga character. I appeared wearing the stupid cowboy hat, so quickly removed it, and hoped she hadn’t seen it.

Over the next ten minutes we exchanged pleasantries – sharing that we had both joined around the same time, and both had the same experiences – the “hey” teenagers, witnessing the boyfriend/girlfriend drama, and so on. After a while we realised we were the first “normal” people we had encountered all week – and you know what? It gave us hope. Almost enough hope to stick around, and to keep sitting in that pretend coffee shop when we get a chance, sitting opposite strangers, in the hope of finding a few new friends around the world. Of course we’ll probably just message each other and not find another friend, but you never know.

Perhaps I should start greeting people with “Hey” instead of “Hi”, then everybody will think I’m a teenager. Of course as soon as I then write anything of consequence my cover will be blown.

I’m winding things down at work today, ahead of travelling to Frankfurt in Germany next week. The flight is booked, the hotel is booked – I just need to turn up, find the hotel, pretend to be clever for a week, then return home again in time for tea and medals.

I’m staying in a different place in the city this time – which may turn out to be something of a blessing. Given that Oktoberfest seems to be happening, hotels have been booked up everywhere, so I’m staying in a hostel a mile or so from the place I’m working, rather than across the road. It will mean a twenty minute walk to and from the office each day, but given the opportunity to explore, I’m actually looking forward to it.

In the movies, travelling to foreign countries seems to mean chance encounters between strangers, and unlikely new friendships. In reality the modern world causes nobody to even make eye contact with you, let alone talk. I will spend the week stressing out about work during the day, and wondering what to occupy myself with in the evenings. It would be easy to sit in my hotel room and watch movies for the entire week, but that seems like a waste. If the weather is good I will walk the streets, stop at bars, watch the world go by, and write a blog post or two. It’s kind of “what I do”.