Tag Archives: resting
the diagnosis
This is a post about how I was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and what I think it means for me – and for the walk. When I got on a flight to Frankfurt at the beginning of June, I felt happy and scared at once. Happy, because I was hoping to finally get vaccinated […]
Gussman
We all refer to each other using different names. My German friends call me Christoph. In English I usually introduce myself as Chris. Over in China some people know me as Leike, or rather: Laolei. And I like to imagine that my cats refer to me as The Fun-Thing™. Lately I seem to have acquired […]
Strudel and Misha
When I was about to return to Tbilisi from Frankfurt, I felt nervous. Would my luggage be overweight? Had I forgotten anything important? Would I be able to catch my connecting flight? And, most importantly: would the cats still recognize me? A friend had been taking care of the apartment and of the cats for […]
sponge relief
When Babua finally decided that it was time to go I mustered all my strength. and then I gently placed him in his carrying case. We took a taxi to the vet. It was a warm day, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The vet, noticing that it was a bit difficult for […]
Babua came to live
This is Babua. He is an old cat from the yard where I used to live. His body is black and skinny, his head is massive, and his eyes always look as if he’s angry. He got this name in February. Being a yard cat means that nobody knows exactly how old he is, but […]
okay okay
Finding people to adopt cats in Tbilisi has been difficult. There are just so many street cats here. Coco and Toto want to have a home, though. I have tried asking around, and I have tried posting on Facebook. There are specialized groups for this kind of thing. When a few people responded to my […]
my first friend Huihui and the Sea
I met Huihui on the fourth day of my walk, about eighty kilometers from Beijing. I was very shy and insecure about my project at that time, and I didn’t know what to expect from people. So when this stranger on his bicycle showed up next to me and started asking me questions (where are […]
Bye Bobona
Today Bobo was extra nice. He sat on my shoulder while I was making breakfast, then he came to sit on my lap, purring until he fell asleep. Meanwhile, his siblings and his mom had gone outside and found a place on top of one of the neighboring roofs. When I finally went out and […]
stranded in Georgia during Covid19
Funny how I have randomly ended up in a country that seems to be handling Covid19 pretty well, at least so far. Today’s stats for Georgia are: 721 total cases out of which 485 have recovered and 12 have died. Why the success? I think it comes down to luck and vigilance. Luck, because Georgia […]
wanna be a slave?
The Chinese language has a slang word called 猫奴 (maonu) – it means “cat slave”, and if your arms, hands, and legs look like this, then maybe you’re one of us: Each drip of blood a decoration. It’s been two months that Coco, Toto, and Bobo dropped from the sky and into my life. Since […]
until then
I’m staying in Batumi, in an old apartment that has been turned into a hostel. The walls are almost twice as high as a person, and they are covered in wood panels. I mostly stay put on a couch, reading, having trail mix and tea, playing Mario Kart, listening to the sound of heavy rainfall […]
riding the bus is harder than walking
Everything happens so quickly. The bus door opens and closes, the engines start humming, then a stream of familiar places rushes by outside of the window. Sometimes I think of a person whom I’ve met here or there, or of a cat or a dog. Every time we go through a tunnel I find myself […]
forty million and two dreams
I wake up late, and when I do, I remember my dreams. There were two. The first was about me arriving at my home on my final day of walking. There was a sense of relief that I had made it, but there was also a sense of panic that I had forgotten something. The […]
there comes a lion
I spend my day doing something I dread: I plan things. I plan Georgia, Germany, Christmas, New Year’s, storage facilities, train tickets, plane rides, doctor’s appointments, etc. etc. In the evening, when my head is about to explode, I have dinner topped off with sütlac, then I get on a minibus to Atakum. A friend […]
rewind
My visa-free stay in Turkey is coming to an end, and so I need to get out of here for a few months. The Caboose is staying in a friend’s garage, I’m boarding a bus back south to Samsun. Looking out of the bus window feels like rewinding a video-tape and watching the story unfold […]
lovers’ names on walls of suffering
Sinop, they say, is famous for being Turkey’s happiest city. Why are people so happy here? Maybe because Sinop is located quite beautifully on a peninsula in the Black Sea. Maybe because the climate is less rainy than in the eastern parts of the coast. Maybe because there are literally no traffic lights in all […]
I HAVE THE POWER
Gerze, someone has told me, used to be a very beautiful town. That was until it burned down a few decades ago. It was subsequently rebuilt, and now almost all of it looks newish and rather uninspired. After taking a little walk down to the harbor, I concur. Gerze has an awesome geographic location, and […]
obese street dogs
Yakakent feels like Gonio. Okay, there is a mosque here and there are a few tea houses, and it’s generally a lot more tame than in Georgia, but the kind of touristy beach-town atmosphere Yakakent has is a bit similar to that of Gonio. This is Yakakent, the relaxed beach-town. I’m here during the off-season, […]
destroyed
I go outside looking for some mobile data for my phone and a bottle of lens cleaner for my cameras. I get 14 GB of data, and when I ask an optician for cleaning fluid he gives it to me for free. Then I stand around for a while. I like doing that, just standing […]
the twelfth day
Twelve years ago on this day I started my walk. It was the first day, it was also my birthday. I walked for a year, then I stopped. I started writing books. Walked some more. Wrote some more. Time passed. Then I started walking again. Last year, on the eleventh day, I was in Tbilisi. […]