OCEANS AWAY

Right out of Dickens

Filed under Out & About

While I was waiting for the bus in the very center of Cologne’s inner city today (with my parents and aunt and brother who were in town and with whom I spent the day at several different Christmas markets) among the masses at the bus stop and shopping streets around us and the little huts and tree lights of the Christmas market just across the street, a lonely middle aged man carrying a guitar case, with a long flowing coat and crazy hair and a friendly smile, politely asked me whether I knew how to get to Cologne’s main train station, more specifically a museum right next to it, and I said he could take subway lines 16 or 18 from the subway stop just over there at the corner, and he seemed surprised and relieved that I could and would help him out, and he thanked me, twice, and smiled, and hurried off – and then turned around again and smiled, doing a quick half-wave, and called out “Merry Christmas!” He was very Dickensian, that guy was.

And so it was that – on December 10, the third advent weekend, after hours and hours at Christmas markets, with Christmas decorations out everywhere since mid-November, gift buying and holiday planning and cookie baking, and the office Christmas party just yesterday – I finally felt like Christmas. Because of this sweet lovely stranger and his oddly old-fashioned ways.

Be kind to people, y’all. It makes all the difference.

PS – I haven’t had much time for this blog lately which makes me sad; I always hate seeing it so deserted. But I’ve been up to lot of fun and exciting things, the most important of which is probably that I scored an interview for a job at a PR agency right here in Cologne. Wish me luck, you guys!