EC Essen - Cologne
I was starting to enjoy Katarina's birthday present more and more. More and more I came to love this journey of freedom and friendship.
On the train from Essen to Zurich I received a text message from my Piemontese friend Daniele, to mark half-time on my journey. It read: "Better to be painted by Picasso than marked by fate."
As Picasso had never painted me and was unfortunately no longer able to do so, all that was left me was fate and its inscription. A bad omen for the remainder of the journey?
In my compartment I listened to one of many mobile phone conversations:
"The train is standing still, are you moving?", my neighbour asked.
"No, I'm in a traffic jam," I heard a man's voice shout out from the phone.
* * *
The mobile phone and the internet had changed my ways of communicating with friends over recent years. Before, I used to write letters, beautiful letters; I put them in envelopes, addressed them and painted pictureson the envelopes, licked the stamp and stuck it onto the envelope. I received letters and collected stamps. I bought two fire-resistant safes to keep them in. Nowadays I hardly ever write a letter, and I receive very few. I have to be able to feel the words under my hands, which is why I print out all my e-mails. I have bought a third safe for the printed e-mails.
