the road leads where it's led

It is Sunday, and it is sunny. What a coincidence. Life is full of coincidences; I just never come across them.

When I woke up this morning, 13:13, I would have been delighted to see the sun shining through my window, but it was too late already. With disbelief I looked at my clock, it said (you name it) 13:13. The shops in England close at 16:00 on a Sunday, and I desperately needed to do some shopping. To cut a long story short: I had to hurry up. Quick shower, the towel once rubbed over the head, putting on whatever lay on the floor, then checking the bus timetables on the internet. Sunday - no buses. So I walked to the city centre to look for a calling card.

We do have a landline here in our house, but it only allows dialing free numbers and 999, which is why my flat mate Alex and I depend on those nice calling cards. All in all, they are not too bad, apart from the fact that it means quite a lot of typing: free number, pin, country code, the actual number. I always end up with thirty digit numbers, and I've noticed I've become far more careful not to make any mistakes.

Anyway, by the time I got to the city centre it was 14:47, and the phone shop where I usually buy the cards was closed already. So I ventured out to do the rounds in all available phone shops and newsagents in the precinct. From the first phone shop I was sent to the nearest newsagents, from there to another phone shop, and from there... you get the gist of it.

Half an hour later, there were no further phone shops or newsagents left, and frustrated I decided to walk to the bus station and take the next bus that goes in my direction. Dodging neurotic late-hour shoppers, I made my way through the Burges and past the old school. Then, on the right, a window caught my attention. An array of about twenty lists of different companies with promising names such as 'Voice of Africa' were on display, and one of them was actually for Europe. £5 for 222 minutes sounded like a fair deal to me, considering that I needed such a thingy anyways. So I stepped inside.

The moment I crossed the threshold, time started to reverse. It felt like stepping back into my childhood days when after school we'd all drop by the kiosk near the bus stop. It was always comparatively dark in there, and it was crammed to the roof with sweets, newspapers, magazines and lots of stuff that didn't seem to serve any special purpose. At the counter there'd always be some old Turkish men eagerly discussing politics with one of the owners. Depending on whose turn it was, they'd either talk a very basic form of German, or in their mother tongue. We didn't care; we came for the peach rings, the apple-flavoured snakes, and other sweet sugary stuff.

This kiosk here was exactly the same, the only difference being that the Turkish old men in their worker outfits had been replaced with Indian mid-50s in suits. The jabbering sounded very familiar, even though the languages being spoken were different. It made me smile; there is something about these places which seems to be an international phenomenon.

I asked the shopkeeper for the Euro Connect card, and it didn't take ten seconds for one of the men to interrupt me and suggest I buy the card of another company instead, for 'they are very good for Europe'. However, I can be a very stubborn person once I've decided on a purchase, so I gratefully declined and insisted on the Euro Connect. I managed to get the last one they had and saw I got the hell out of there, for no matter how much it reminded me of days long gone, I don't feel too comfortable around people in general, and it had become really packed since two old ladies had entered who pushed and shoved the men around to get to the fridge. Each bought four pints of milk, and I wondered why they didn't just go the Sainsbury's across the road. They must've had lots of money; prices in a kiosk are always ridiculously high - another international phenomenon.

On my way home, I had to wait for the bus for thirty minutes. Intent on passing the time, I nibbled on a slice of the soda bread I bought in the Sainsbury's and listened to two Eastern Asian girls chirping away in their language. I guess the monotony of German would send them straight to sleep.

Now I do what I have been doing for days, I'm sitting in my kitchen and waste my time on the net. My dad rang me up for the first time in weeks, but only because I sent him a text. He's not getting better, and it all looks as if they really had to put him on the list for a heart transplantation. But enough of that for now.

Tomorrow will be a day full of washing and cleaning. Tuesday I'll have to pack my stuff and try to go to sleep earlier than 5am, for the next day I'll go to Dresden for a few days. I missed it so much over the past ten months, and considering the state I am in, it doesn't seem a too bad idea to just hang out there for a while. Maybe see a doctor, the NHS is obviously a bit unreliable, but that's not news.