Ich bin zuruck!! (I am back!)

The guilt of not writing in my blog and seeing the excitement in everyone else's is making me feel ill.

It is as if there is a gap in my thinking. I feel like if I do not blog my brain will go to jelly. I feel like I have to be 'OUT THERE' otherwise I will miss something. Is this Everyday Literacy practices gone out of control? (intertextual link).

When I was in Cologne at the weekend, (you know how it is...)


I saw a fab picture of Mary chasitising Jesus


I love this kind of down to earthness. Here is the holy family having what we call 'a bit of a domestic'. All a bit harsh compared even to Caravaggio and his depiction of dirty feet. (See early December entries.)


Well anyway, while we were there, (my 'partner' and I) ordered coffee in a way we know to be problematic wherever we go. We like to drink 'Americanos'. We believe this to be an excellent coffee, (when you can get it) made initially as an Espresso, then with a large amount of hot water added. And it should be black. Yet in Italy we get a double Espresso with such an order; in Sardinia you get a blank look and any number of combination of water, coffee and possibly milk. (Quite frankly Iwould not dare order it in Paris, where I have been scolded more than once by waitresses etc.) In the States we get what we expect. But the word is Itlaian for 'American'. And the American's are using an Italian word to describe a coffee we (stupidly) thought to be Italian. But it is an Italian word to describe an American type of coffee, which has been copied recently by the English. Confused?
Well we are.
In Cologne, we described what we wanted in German when we ordered our American coffee which we refer to by the Itlaian word for American.

Gosh how global...... Or is it local?

Anyway, we got this:



Please note how the extra water was interpreted as 'on the side'.

And finally, for all you Manga fans, we found a bookshop where teenaged girls were clustered on easy chairs reading the Manga paperbacks. I bought one called 'Perfect Girl' (like me). The cover is in English, the format is Japanese, and the text is German. It is all so interlinguistic.

So glocal baby.

And finally ... here I am, in the international Hotel chain, reading my German novel .... (or am I?)


What a globe trotter, I'm telling you mate ...



Cheap travel blows my mind.