Diary of a journey to myself / The second revelation

26.12., shortly after 15:00, Seoul Airport

The sun shines through the airport windows, but it seems quite cold. The flight also passed by very quickly and was relaxing, even though I couldn't sleep at all. Watched five movies (Pompeii, some terrible kitschy movie with Collin Farell, and at least 3 times Walt Disney's "The Princess and the Frog"). Didn't help to get tired though. Despite barely sleeping since yesterday, I feel unusually rested and I'm thinking again about how much I enjoyed the surprise visit from my in-laws at Bonn train station. They unexpectedly appeared on the platform, told us how good it was that Fabian called again to say goodbye, otherwise they would have gone to Siegburg train station and wouldn't have been able to give us the Christmas cookies as provisions. Totally sweet of them and I put a homemade cookie in my mouth. In 6 hours we'll continue and I'm still not a bit tired.

"You always manage to occupy yourself so calmly", I remark a bit annoyed. Fabian shrugs his shoulders. "Read something", he replies without taking his eyes off the tablet. He's once again about to break his own record in the country puzzle and is highly focused. I just can't understand why and what's the point of being able to recognize countries by their outlines and place puzzle pieces on the right continent and in the exact right place on the screen world map. Well, I can still manage the boot of Italy and the outlines of Chile, but Belize, Luxembourg, or Bulgaria? "Well, which country is this? We were there last year. Take a close look now". Full of expectation, he nudges my upper arm and waits for my enlightenment. "Man, I don't know. Absolutely no idea. Guatemala?" I only thought of that because he had just placed Belize in the right spot. "Correct!" He's really thrilled and so am I because I guessed it so well even though I didn't even recognize the outlines correctly. The reason I don't want to read a book is not because I don't feel like it, but because I was once again too proud to bring my reading glasses. "And this one, come on, take a look". He excitedly points to some structure that I can hardly recognize because it's so tiny. "I just can't recognize it, honey. I forgot my glasses", I admit a bit meekly (even though forgot is actually a lie). "I think you don't need glasses anymore since Honduras". "Unfortunately yes, but only in the evening and oooonly when I'm really tired". "I don't think you're tired", he counters a little sarcastically, to which I reply even more annoyed: "Man, maybe over-tired. You were sleeping the whole time".

Offended, I turn towards the window while he starts the next level. That was a strange experience last year at the pier in La Ceiba in Honduras, where we were waiting for the boat to Utila. I was in the blazing sun, he was further behind me under trees in the shade. Out of boredom, I grabbed the Lonely Planet that he had left with me for once before sitting in the sun. There I sat and read about the island that so many acquaintances rave about because they had been there many years ago (when they were teenagers).

Super beautiful island, cool people, fantastic diving area, simply unique for all those who love diving, but I don't care. But of course I understand Fabian, who had taken a trial course on Koh Mak on our very first long-distance trip six years ago. There on this small island in eastern Thailand, not far from the Cambodian border, I went with him to the diving school, which was run by a young, very ambitious blond surfer type from New York (could have been the younger brother of Kurt Cobain) and who at the end of his attempts to get me excited about a beginner's course gave up understandingly. There will always be people who should better not do it, and I just happen to be one of them. Yet he was anything but arrogant, but really very empathetic, as my sister would say ("empathetic" was currently her favorite word).

That's why, and only because of that, I let myself be persuaded to go on the boat and at least snorkel a bit, which I tried but didn't really get enthusiastic about. I simply hate not being able to breathe in the air. No problem at all in high altitudes, but underwater or in caves, the world looks threatening to me. I panic, like a toddler who has just been thrown into the water. They actually used this method for some time to teach children how to swim. Horror and from my point of view absolutely impossible and traumatizing, just like when my father held me tightly by the wrist at the beach in Brittany, when the giant waves came towards us, I got flushed under water and couldn't breathe. Instead of air, I had sand in all my body openings and for a short time, I didn't know where up and down was before I surfaced, gasping for air after what felt like an eternity, when the wave finally passed over me. Somehow my father seemed to have forgotten that I was not 1.90 meters tall at the age of 7 and that I had always been afraid of water. What was great fun for him was a nightmare for me and he didn't even notice it.

I had a great time in the helicopter, though, where I flew over the so-called "Great Blue Hole" (a round underwater sinkhole) in Belize together with a Chinese couple from New York, including the pilot of course, during the same vacation when Fabian was diving in it. The couple had been looking for a third person to share the cost of the flight and approached me because my flowery boots made me appear so cool to them. Coincidentally, Mai, with whom I still have contact on Facebook today and we keep track of each other's travels, already had a noticeably long fringe back then, which I noticed first about her.

Anyway, I read about the great diving areas and what to consider when choosing among the numerous diving schools in Utila, when I suddenly realized that I can read again. Apparently, it had to do with the bright sun. It was as if something had popped in my eyes. Suddenly, I could read the small print - and the print in the Lonely Planet is damn small - without any problems. So two days later, I could pass the time in our room, in front of me the balcony with a view of the adjacent sea, with "The Doors of Perception" by Aldous Huxley, while Fabian was on his 40th birthday diving tour to whale sharks and manta rays.

No, I wouldn't recommend this island to anyone who has surpassed the magical age of 25 and doesn't hang out half-naked all day at the dive center or isn't traveling with a crew of super cool guys in diving suits, hauling oxygen bottles from one spectacular diving paradise to another. You also have to be a lover of quads on Utila, racing back and forth on the only road where more or less all restaurants, bars, jewelry and knick-knack shops, and above all at least 35 diving schools are located, constantly pushing the few tourists who actually walk to the side. Even back then, I had to think of the children's song "Oma hüpf mal" (Grandma hop), even though I wasn't a grandma at the time. People, especially women over 40, can quickly fall into a midlife crisis here and feel out of the generation. Until this vacation, I had never noticed so much that we hardly meet backpackers on our travels who couldn't have been our children in terms of age. Even the acquaintances that lasted a very long time were always people who were at least 10 years younger, around Fabian's age.

But these were always acquaintances that left deep traces. Both with us and obviously also with the others, as especially with Bob and Rachel. We had met the two on Koh Mak. I noticed Bob right away because with his freckles on fair skin and his red hair, he looked wonderfully British and he dealt with the long-haired brunette Rachel in a incredibly loving way, whose nose was a tiny bit too big, which didn't detract from the gentle beauty of her face at all.

I still see the picture in front of me when he stepped onto the veranda of his hut, which was not even 20 meters away from our beach hut in this truly paradisiacal resort, dressed only in a towel around his hips, about to light a cigarette, when a voice from inside called out loudly "Booooob" and he immediately threw his cigarette into the surrounding sand and rushed inside. That same evening, a few hours later, we were sitting together at the bar in the beach restaurant, surrounded by palm trees with a view of the starry sky and the pitch-black Pacific just 30 meters away, laughing about my lousy English. He told me some story about turtles and I understood it as tattoos the whole time. "No, I am talking about TURTLES, animals that can swim and lay eggs", he looked quite desperate. Only then did I have a moment of realization. "Oh really, now I understand. I thought you were talking about tattoos on your legs." Bursting laughter ensued. Even the cute Thai waiter behind the bar who had been constantly supplying us with drinks laughed along, even though he didn't understand what it was all about.

Bob even told this story again when we attended his and Rachel's wedding 3 years later in Brighton, to which they had invited us, almost antiquatedly, with a physically mailed card. Just like Rachel told us after the wedding dinner during a cigarette outside the cottage where the wedding party took place, a bit tipsy, they had apparently been very impressed with our story in Thailand that we got married exactly 10 years after the day we met because we wanted to throw a big party as a couple and also thought it was really stupid if we had to say in the pharmacy, for example, "No, it's for my friend" or even worse: "This is for my life partner". They were so inspired by that, they simply wanted to imitate it. Their wedding also took place exactly on the 10th anniversary of their meeting in London, from where the whole party was transported to Brighton by a lovingly painted wedding bus, while the cans tied to the exhaust rattled on the asphalt as if there were no tomorrow. So if these are not traces that we left behind, then I don't know.

Revelation No. 2:

Deep-seated experiences and intense encounters with certain people leave traces that sooner or later become important. If I recognize these traces, I can learn something from them that can be important for my life's path.