Berlin – Kreuzkölln. Don’t look for it on the map, because it isn’t there. What you will find is Neukölln. And then there is Kreuzberg pinched between former GDR boroughs. And right where those boroughs touch, is the fictional Kreuzkölln.
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Sarajevo – The boy holds out a dirty hand and looks at me expectantly. I strike him over his head. I know I shouldn’t be doing this but I slip money in his pocket and curse the corrupted system.
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New Orleans – We were going for a walk in Algiers. I admit it: utter madness! Not only because the temperature refused to drop below 36 degrees Celsius. The fact that in the past seven months, as many as 132 people were killed, mostly by shotgun, was by no means reason to cancel the walk.
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Jerusalem – The porch is minuscule. On the edge of the iron fence that portions off the small tables from the passers on the market, roses bloom profusely from cans. On the tables more roses. I am fortunate to conquer the last free table at Bar 5th of May.
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Ostend – One by one, the shrimp cutters appear within our view, at a slow pace. Behind them the sun showers Ostend’s lighthouse with its first rays.
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Berlin – “I just thought, now it will take longer before I have my freedom.”
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Jerez de la Frontera – You can still hear the wailing ayyys of past centuries.
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Berlin – Karl & Liesl are in their nineties. They never moved. But lived everywhere.
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Haarlem – I left on the day that Holland got a Danish beating at soccer. It was raining. Like everywhere else in the country. At the Bed & Breakfast the owner and I shook hands. “Welcome in Haarlem”, she said. Did I know I was very fortunate? I had just arrived to the most beautiful town of the Netherlands.
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Ypres – The landscape of West Flanders still shows the gaping wounds of the First World War. However Ypres and Poperinge also offer great (culinary) joy. Ten hotspots for war and peace.
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