Dog-logic

(Seven reasons to move with dog's hordes in the middle of no where in the German country side).

1. Arbeit! Job!

Something that many people don't seem to understand is that, when I am traveling, I am not on holidays or doing tourist stuff all the time. I don't get why they think it's like that, in such an enthusiastic, positive and naive way: as a curious fact, in 11 years of working, I have NEVER earned the minimum salary according to the law. Besides, when you are an illegal immigrant, many times you have to be thankful for a shitty salary, that can be less than $10 per day (yes, it happened to me, I have been exploited). That's why not everybody lives the way I do. You must do some sacrifices in order to reach the supreme goal: to get to know the world when you still have youth and health to fill your backpack with, since there are no guarantees that even tomorrow is going to be like that. As I said previously, the time of the others is not my time. This is a nomad lifestyle and many, many hours of it I devote myself to work, even just in exchange of bed and food. 

For whoever might choose to live that far from his or her comfort zone, there are three websites that can be of tremendous help : HelpX, Workaway and WWOOF. There, the unemployed and starved backpacker can find dozens of jobs in hostels, farms, babysitting or, as in my case so far: in two hostels, in a construction, in a nudist camp and now, in a hotel for dogs.

First reason then to move with hordes of dogs, even in the middle of nowhere.

2. The more I get to know the people, the more I love my dog.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I have a huge passion for animals, and with dogs I usually have an excellent relationship, which allows me to have a conversation with them and ask them about their plans to conquer the Western world. At this point, and since my experience working in a backpackers hostel in Portugal turns out to be a major disappointment, I rather to deal with costumers on four legs and not with the annoying ones only on two. Therefore, I have no doubts about packing my things and make my way to Germany, looking to take care of German dogs and not of their annoying masters, who already pissed me off enough by ringing the bell at 2:00 a.m. in order to begin their Portuguese holidays in the Algarve region.

My lovely and German attic.

3. A room with TV and a bathroom with bathtub!

I am an extremely territorial character. Really, 100%. I usually need my own space, and I would pee around it if that would be allowed by the social human standards. After weeks of sharing a room, the chance of having some square meters of sovereignty, even in a land far away from German civilization, turns out to be a major pro. The dog's hotel not only offers the chance to be in a 24/7 dog's company, but also the opportunity of having my own room and my own bathroom (both of them luxuries that you HARDLY EVER find on the way). 

When I arrive, after wandering around Hann and Düsseldorf, it turns out to be even better than I expected. The bathroom (and this is almost a miracle) has a bathtub. My fascination for bathtubs dates back to ancient times, when I sadly realized I was way too big for my baby bathtub and I had to content myself with the shower for the next 30 years. Therefore, every single night, as a ritual, I leave the dogs watching some TV, enjoying a documentary about dinosaurs or Hitler's childhood, and I devote myself to be under water for at least 30 minutes, with the orgasmic knowledge of the pleasures that are finite. The room, on the other hand, is perched in a garret (I love garrets and since Little Women was the first book I read in my life, ever since I have the idea that a writer must write in an attic). By the way, my room comes with the extra bonus of a TV mounted in the closet. I'm not a big fan of the TV and when I'm traveling I spend months without placing my eyes on a screen, but for hearing some German and learning to discern its guttural sounds comes perfect. It's not like I am going to learn too much German with the dogs, which subsequently turn out to be fairly bilingual and answer me without any language problem when I speak to them in Spanish. Which brings us to the next point:

4. Deutsch natürlich!

Did you believe that having been heart broken by a pair of German-speaking male characters would discourage me to learn the complicated (and for many dreadful) language of Thomas Mann? Fehler! Not surprisingly I am carrying a literary kilogram with The Magic Mountain, even when it is not a backpacker item.

Since I am dealing with bilingual dogs, to be sure about meine Aussprache improvements, I can always count on the language support of Ilona and Linda, the owners of the hotel, a lesbian couple. While it is true that writing and an insane translation, a traumatic experience that will be narrated in a separate chapter (believe me, it deserves it), don't allow me to spend with them the amount of time that you might actually expect, at least during dinner I have the opportunity to build some German sentences, even taking the risk of a brain hemorrhage in the attempt to say: “Pass me the bread, bitte”. By the way: I do not get along with German bread. Which brings me to my next point:

5. Real food!

True: I've starved in my life because I wanted to. It's really immoral to say that I have gone under starvation as it happens to millions of people around the world, in one of these global catastrophes, which become so ordinary, that lose the tragic role that they really deserve.

But, in my own level, the truth is when I travel, one way o another, I eat very poorly. And I can say with certainty that even if it's by choice, I have starved indeed and suffered of chronic hunger. It is not uncommon for me to return to Costa Rica with my pants almost around my knees, as it is starting to happen now, when I'm seriously considering buying a belt. Not every hostel has a kitchen and at least in Europe, eating in restaurants is expensive, hence my healthy nutrition whose happy pillar is the Happy Meal from McDonald's.

Since my very first day at the dog's hotel, I set my limits with Ilona and Linda: I'll be willing to do whatever it takes, from collecting dog poop, cover the holes the dogs make in the garden, take them for a walk, feed them, weeding (try to do it with a small pair of scissors and a mattock on both sides of a fence about two hundred meters length and you will see what I mean), and even the butcher task of cutting by hand 60 kilos of raw cow's stomach, but not cooking. I do not want to punish anyone with that, and certainly not two people who give me a room in an attic and a bathroom with a tub.

Luckily for me, Linda and Ilona's cooking turns out to be like the one of a five star hotel category for demanding-pain-in-the-ass humans, and I spend my month of canine imprisonment feeding me with real food. Both of them, as many Germans, love bio products, so three times per day I have the sensation of chewing and savoring something as abstract as health. Not to mention Ilona's potato salad: the best I've ever had, something to stand out in a land where the yellow color of the flag should represent the legendary Kartoffelsalat. On top of this, the coffee machine, an expensive one, but capable of crushing grains to distill a drink worthy of the gods, becomes, for me, the household object of worship in the house.

Special mention deserve the bread and the legendary Apfelschorle, an apple's drink which I guess you have to be German and a little bit blond in order for its chemistry to work out and then, perhaps, find its taste. As for the bread, I assume that Germans, always so pragmatic, are ready to bake it in a way that also serve as bricks to prevent flooding and other avalanches, which they seriously suffer this summer that I arrive in their Aryan country, it's usual for me to be chased by a cloud. Such a hard bread! The simple fact of getting a slice requires, at least, of a Hanzo katana. My first attempts to cut a slice only lead to Ilona's question, about if that baking mutilation was made by Zitalla, the Canadian wolf that lives in the house and often chews wood. Which brings me to my next point:

Zitalla and Ruby.

6. Dogs!

Since I have memory, it never seemed to me that I have enough dogs and my philanthropic dream is to have my own shelter someday, where any dog that has suffered a miserable life can finally find the peace that all living beings deserve, whether they are walking on two or four legs. I love dogs and this is where this point splits into dozens of reasons as well as clients, guests or residents this hotel have: Sam, the Golden Retriever, that drools constantly; Oli, the small white mat that follows me everywhere; Paula and Ledchen, a pair of labrador sisters; Syd, the white shepherd with potential vision problems; Anton, a distinguished dog with one blue eye and one brown eye, with a bulky fur, which seems like he is wearing his own coat all the time; and I could go on and on because, during my stay, the stays of countless dogs run parallel. To all these, guests, you can add the ones that go only to nursery and the protagonist ones who live in the hotel: Ruby, a miniature that barks in a very high pitched way; Matilda, another tiny dog full of energy; Kami, an equine class dog, giant and with little brain, but a huge soul which fills the rest of her size; Rosella, an elderly Greek enjoying the leisurely life of the elderly, and the shy Zitalla, a Canadian wolf would devour everything in her path (including the bread).

It strikes me that many of the concurrent dogs have an international passport. There is a considerable amount of Greeks, some Spanish and some Balkan. It seems that in Germany there is a shortage of dogs, which they fulfill with outsiders dogs that migrate from shelters in their respective nations, in search of a better life; not in vain they say Germany is the land of opportunity amid the Eurozone crisis. I can easily imagine some of the nearly one million of dogs that roam the streets of Costa Rica boarding a ship, as the immigrants in the 19th century did, heading to Germany willing to find someone who loves them enough to buy them a thalamus, canned food and pay 15 euros per day so they can attend kindergarten and get some education.

However, according to the statistics, it seems that any dog wishing to immigrate must take notice that the Germans seem to like big dogs. Minimum size labrador, glorious size a Great Dane. It must be because they are very tall and maybe too lazy to head down for a simple eye contact, and therefore they look for a dog that can see them straight in the eyes when he puts his legs on their shoulders.

I must admit that this large size preference complicates my life a little bit. Normally if my Beba Lu, my brainless french poodle, refuses to move, I just can carry her. If it's not by the good way, then it will be the hard way. But it's impossible for me, for example, to carry Benet, a Great Dane whose head alone could be a full french poodle. Then it would bad for me, very, very bad. I am pretty sure that many of these dogs weigh more than me. Now, imagine how hard it can be to feed ten of them at the same time, separate them when they have a fight or bring them together while they are playing in a huge garden (so huge that it even has a pond) to go to bed together. It's not exactly easy being the head of the pack.

Kami and Matilda... yes,find the other dog in the picture!

7. Learning to be alone

The hotel, Hundelogik, something like “Dog-logic”, is located near the city of Bielefeld, which according to a German urban legend, is a city that doesn't exist. As I said “close”. For further references, it's rather “close” to a town called Halle (there are two Halle in Germany, this one, where I ended up, is Halle Westphalia). “Close”. Which really means that the hotel is literally in the middle of nowhere, in the naked German countryside, and if you even want to buy cigarettes you must take the bus. Every night, when I look out the attic's window, I don't see a single light as far as my night blindness allows me.

In almost a month I only leave the hotel twice: one to buy a new battery for my laptop (item not found, which is not surprising considering the size of Halle) and another one to accompany Ilona to bring some building materials to remodel her office. Altogether, you could say that in a month I step outside the hotel just for three hours. It is indeed a canine and monastic retreat, where days pass by working in the garden and with the dogs for five hours, and then working alone in my room, writing or translating.

Now that I look back, I realize how much I've changed. I got so used to be alone, that I don't even notice that I never go out. I think this journey is ruining my ability to socialize and, on the contrary, it seems to be a lesson about not expecting anything from anyone, not relying on anyone and not trusting anyone. The only thing that appeals me is being with dogs and sleep with three or four in my room every night, with at least one of them in my bed, under the covers. A guy? No, thanks, if he wants, he can sleep on the carpet.

That's why I consider it almost like a monastery period. Monastery in the sense of achieving even some wisdom. In fact, dogs are very wise, but we, humans, just praise them from time to time, but we don't learn anything of what they preach behind their barking. I am not going to talk about their loyalty or about how they content themselves with just a little bit of love. Asking the same to a person seems illogical to me. Imagine how bizarre it would be if, for example, I jump on you and fill you with drooling kisses every time you walk through the door, in ecstasy, even when we've seen each other just two hours ago, and I content myself with just some petting in return. I mean, no way.

Rather, I focus on the sincerity of the dog. It's easy with dogs: if a dog likes you, everything cool, and if he doesn't, he will show it to you. There is no hypocrisy in a dog and, above all, no qualms in showing that he really needs you or dislikes you. He doesn't care: what he feels, he expresses without any fear of rejection and so, if you really manage to get along with him, his love will never end. This has to be the most beautiful, the most sublime and the most pure of all freedoms. The freedom to give what it comes from the bottom of your heart and show it from the tip of the nose they use in order to smell you, to the tip of the tail they happily wag.

That's the dog-logic that everyone should learn from, starting with me.

Do you like the way I write? Do you think that being a writer is a respected profession, just like dogsitting or any other? So please, please share this text in your social networks or, if you feel like doing positive karma points today, click on the buttons on the right side and subscribe yourself, or give me whatever you think is fair for my work. Just imagine that you invited me a coffee.Thank you for reading! :)

Imagine Belfast...

Belfast is a very peculiar city, for not saying bizarre. One I will never forget. Not because it is considered the Titanic's uterus, a ship which was born dead in a very premature way in the frozen waters of the Atlantic a century ago, as we all know. Not for its beutiful architecture, which is wasted in banks and minimarkets in a very European way. Not even for the good memories I may keep from an abandoned sofa in a parking lot, when the cold weather didn't matter. For all that I have pictures and I can close my eyes if I need to.

The reason which I think I will never forget Belfast is its atmosphere. One that doesn't seem to fit well to anyone and that makes the city practically dead with every sunset. A very heavy air, not friendly at all, and which makes me turn my head over my shoulder constantly when I walk down the street. A feeling that I keep crossing invisible lines between I can get stuck. A heavy, stressful air. A vibe hard to deal with, beyond its melancholic sunset rain. A gray and green-like-moss air, as I imagined previously (I don't know why, but I've always pictured Belfast in that abstract color sketch). Belfast is gray and green-like-moss. Moss. A moss that get stuck in your lungs. Maybe it is because of that, that Belfast doesn't breath well. And it's impossible that it does, when it has a wall in the middle.

Belfast Wall.

The wall (which I still don't get why I never heard about it before, until I cross paths with), has the cynical name of Peace Line. It divides the catholic or republican neighborhoods from the protestants or loyal to the crown ones (you can choose which one of those names you find politically correct; for me all of them are absurd). It has been there for years, along some intermittent kilometers, in a very concrete and tangible way, beyond the ideas, which are always so abstract. In case someone would like to fraternize it has some gates, sometimes watched by the police, which they close in a religious way at 5 p.m., in order to avoid catholics and protestants to go into a fist fight, for not so Vatican issues.

It is, practically, a Berlin wall, something that I used to think got lost already in the last century, with all the non sense which the XX century got high with. Its function is the same: a wall between streets with houses and people who look all the same to the naked eye, in order to make them different in the bad way. A wall painted with political murals: on the protestant side with British flags; on the catholic one with murals from the martyrs who died during hunger strikes for the independence of Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein heroes, and some solidarity murals with other countries which they consider to share a manifest and similar destiny, like Palestine, Cuba and I don't know who else. A group of bricks which doesn't seem to bother anyone, even when it is in the middle of the way.

British side.

Republican side.

By the little bit I knew about Northern Ireland, I had some idea that this place was not the one John Lennon imagined. The bombs placed by the IRA, the riots during 30 years known as The Troubles (such a creative name they chosed for a politic issue), some literature about the Sinn Fein and the movie In the name of the father, made me imagine Belfast as one of those chaotic and political problematic places which call my attention so much. Better reason then to go there.

For whoever may be reading this blog and doesn't have too much of an idea about the whole situation, the thing is very simple: Ireland got its independence in 1919, but Northern Ireland is still part of the UK. Some people find it really cool, others not that much. And ever since they hit each other in order to solve the problem, with some bombs every now and then when things get heavy. End of the history.

Or well, not such an end. Naively, I thought all of this was part of a very sad and famous past, already outdated, as the Berlin wall is outdated too and that makes impossible to think about a communist Germany, something so absurd as to imagine half Japan populated by black people. Therefore, I was expecting to find some leftovers of history to learn from. But no: what I found was a present that still exists. In Belfast there is a wall still and the strangest part is that no one seems to care about, as it had grown there in a natural way, as a tree, by spontaneous generation. Or at least that seems to me, since meanwhile I was there I didn't see anyone trying to bring it down with a hammer. But the wall goes beyond that. And that is what give me the feeling that I am walking between invisible lines that I am not sure if I should cross.

To start with, during the evening Belfast gave me the impression to be a ghost town. The Royal Avenue, a crowded street during day time (with a bunch of people who I can not distinguish if they are catholics or protestants), at 8 p.m. is dead. Meanwhile I wander around with him, who had such a pretty name, and the Uruguayan girl (characters that you may remember from the last chapter He, who had such a pretty name) I can not avoid the feeling that the zombie apocalypse already happened, and we are a group of three survivors, who in a moment will have to deal with Rick and his gang in an Irish version of The Walking Dead. Man, there is no one here. Absolutely no one. No noise, no music, no cars, not even an atheist and apolitical dog wandering around.

We need to walk more, a lot more to find an open bar this Monday night. A place which seems like a hotel's lobby, but where the beer tastes the same as anywhere else.

We sat down in the terrace to smoke and a few minutes later, a couple of Irish guys from a table near to ours began to talk to us. One of them speaks Spanish with an accent from Madrid, since he used to work in Spain, when this country was able to feed immigrants. It's a very peculiar situation, since I am in the middle of a Spanish speaker Irish and him, who had such a pretty name, who may be Slovakian, but speaks Spanish with all those c and z I don't even pronounce.

However, the situation is about to become even more peculiar, despite of the fact that they are talking about something as common as soccer, according to the canons which good part of the masculine population uses to socialize worldwide. I don't know when, since I don't have my catholic detector on, but the Irish who speaks Spanish cross himself. I don't know if he expects that one day the Atlético of Madrid wins and asks God's help for those tiny favors. I have always believed God must be a very busy guy and I don't want to bother him with those whims , but some people like to abuse of his omnipresence; that's a personal choice. In any case, I don't even notice it, since they are talking about a soccer ball and anyone who knows me is aware that I don't give a shit about it.

But there is a guy near us who really cares: a big, tall, bold guy, someone like the prototype of the bad boy from a fifth class action movie. He noticed, indeed, that the Irish guy who speaks Spanish had crossed himself. And man, he really doesn't like it. In fact, he starts to argue with us and say that he is a fucking catholic who likes to talk to bloody foreigners. Later that night, I will find out that this bar was one of protestants, who don't seem to like foreigners too much, so it was not the best idea to go there and have a beer, even when beer is a drink which brings nations together.

A little bit scared, the two Irish, the Uruguayan, the handsome Slovakian who had such a pretty name and me decided to go inside to drink our beer in peace, away from this bold guy, who seems so friendly and tolerant. Then, my legendary curiosity takes control of the situation and I began to ask. It wasn't supposed to be all this problem between catholics and protestants an issue from the last century? Didn't they find a way to understand each other in a more diplomatic way? It wasn't all this problem already on a negotiation table, not over, but at least without blood that spoils the surface where they were drinking a cup of tea?

“Sure, in front of the cameras”, says the Irish who speaks Spanish.“But here everything is the same. We are still fighting”.

And to prove it, the other Irish, the one who doesn't speak Spanish, began to show us some scars from the 27 times he got stabbed so far. Some of them are from fights against protestants, others because he devoted himself to steal cars for a while (yes, the people with I sit down for a beer, on a Monday night in a city that I don't know...). I guess none of these guys go to church very often. In fact, the one who speaks Spanish declares himself as an atheist. But in front of the protestant's eyes, he is in a category close to a cardinal.

The bold guy now is just at the table across ours and keeps going with his bullshit. In the few days I have spent in Ireland I realized that I am having a hard time understanding their Irish-pirate-like accent so I don't get a lot of what he is saying, but after a while the Irish who doesn't speak Spanish stands up and began to play along. I see a fight coming just in front of me.

“Don't worry”, says the Irish who speaks Spanish. “He won't hit you. You are a girl. Besides, we are three guys”. He assumes that he will count with the help of the cute Slovakian, but he just shrugs and says to me not so loud: “You know, I don't feel like running today...”.

The Uruguayan girl finally does something useful besides being in the middle of the Slovakian and me and calls a waitress in order to kick the bold guy out of the bar. A blond skinny girl won't help that much if the blood ruins the carpet already, but since we are in an early verbal stage of the fight at least she manages to put everybody back to their own places.

I got paralyzed, but at the same time insanely fascinated: that this kind of things are still going on in such an intense way until the day I am writing this seems shocking to me.

British side.

Republican side.

The next day I decided to walk around in a protestant neighborhood, in a catholic one and cross a Peace Line, to see by myself if, indeed, there are such big differences. The Irish guys offer us a personal tour, but after saying a very enthusiastic yes, I think it twice and I decide to go alone. I don't trust a guy who got stabbed 27 times that much. Besides, I am a girl anyway. I feel safer if I am by my own at this point.

Tourist guides don't recommend walking around this area after 7 p.m. and a guy from the hostel tells me that it is not a good idea to walk around Shankill, one of the most British neighborhoods, since I am a foreigner. But come on: even when I share the political view that you should behave like the others do when you are abroad, no one is going to tell me where I can walk around or not. It's a sunny morning and it's not like I am going to argue about Margaret Tatcher with anyone I might cross paths with.

As I suspected, nothing happens. Shankill (the protestant one) and Falls Road (the catholic one) are normal neighborhoods, with brick houses, gardens and regular people wandering around. The only difference is all this political paraphernalia that decorates them: some light poles have British flags, some Irish flags. Some graffitis are about British pride, others about Irish pride. The catholic neighborhood seems the most compromised with the matter, maybe because they are less, and has more murals and a small remembrance garden, to honor those who lost their lives trying to erase an invisible line.

When I cross the Peace Line through one of the gates I am all by myself. There is just me and a huge mural on the peace wall, which settles the brief neutral territory, as short as the time it takes to cross a gate. Imagine, says ironically, written with big letters that don't seem to motivate anyone to read them.

Peace Line.

I sit down in front of the mural and I can not stop thinking about how contradictory people can be. If I have to make my choice between all those absurd labels for two neighborhoods that look exactly the same, I stick with republican and loyal. Religion is out of question here, Jesus, who is so poorly marketed, has nothing to do with all this issue. It reminds me The Gospel according to Jesus Christ by Saramago, one of my favorites books. In one of the most brilliants chapters in Literature's history, the devil tries to make Jesus fall in temptation, as they are in the mount of olives. Even when nobody knows about what they talked meanwhile they were drinking tea during those lovely hours, rumor has that everything was around Maria Magdalena and sex. A very cliche theory, that tries to seem avant-garde . But in The Gospel according Jesus Christ they talk about a temptation that seems more appealing to me: the devil tells Jesus about how all his friends will die as so many other people, just in his name, and he asks him if that really worth it. If all this blood in his name is something even moral. I wonder if Jesus would agree if he comes here to see the wall.

But even if we leave religion aside and we focus on politics, this is no sense. The Irish flag, the one that proudly waves in the republican neighborhoods, is one that I really like, but its meaning is lost too: the green represents the catholics, the orange the protestants and the white the peace that should bring them together in the middle. But no one seems to care. And then people ask me why I insist in not having a flag.

I write this chapter in Berlin, meanwhile I wait for a visa to India in one of these games of invisible lines that people like so much to play. Another city that used to have a wall too. Walls, visas, borders... These are difficult times for travelers. And even more difficult for those who just want to imagine a world without so much shit in the middle, despite of what John Lennon said once: Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do...

Do you like the way I write? Do you think that being a writer is a respected profession, just like any other? So please, please share this text in your social networks or, if you feel like doing positive karma points today, click on the buttons on the right side and subscribe yourself, or give me whatever you think is fair for my work. Just imagine that you invited me a coffee.Thank you for reading! :)

He, who had such a pretty name

“I`m going to write about you”, I tell him, while my left cheek lays on his knee and he plays with my hair. “OK”, I hear his voice. “But don´t write my name. I don`t want to be a small character in a big novel”

Such a shame, because he has a really, really pretty name…But he knew it and so did I: in the long run, we were both going to become a secondary character in each other`s life. After that, just a reference character, and then, an even nameless one. That´s the way life goes, even when you don`t want it to be that way: you can´t keep all the characters you want, no matter how much you like them.

All I have left is thinking that for these three days he is my protagonist in this little story.  

A crappy hostel, if you may call it that way, lighted by 75-watt lights at most. Six British pounds a bed. A room with two dozens of bunk beds, from which I get number 13 (13, always 13…), Belfast, North Ireland. I got here just a few hours ago from Dublin, since I have to quarterly flee the Schengen States, whose borders expulse me every once in a while, tired of my alien presence.

Unable to sleep on the train, I lay down for a while to take my nap, with which I usually begin my stay in a city. Me being a traveling addict does not mean I can keep up with the Lonely Planet.

 Belfast: the stage of this story.

I get up and go towards the kitchen, holding my laptop, after having withdrawn it from reception. This hostel`s low cost restrains its ability to have lockers to save your valuables. Reason why I had to leave my computer in the front desk, tagged with my name, my room number and my bunk bed number: 13, always 13.

I haven’t felt too social for a long time. I have barely talked to people since I got to Ireland. That matches my more and more usual hermit-like condition. I must get used to be alone; I shall not depend on anyone; I shall not trust anyone…Alone, always alone.

Still, when I see him, the wall I have built around me in the past weeks suddenly explodes.

A dark hair guy, with Converse and big hands, probably the biggest I have ever seen in my life, is writing on a notebook, sitting on one of the kitchen tables. “Well, hello!”, I think to myself, while holding my laptop, I stand staring at his tilted head, trying to decipher the color of his eyes, sunk on the paper.

But nothing happens. He continues looking at his notebook, without looking at me. The usual: a handsome guy whom I will own only with my sight. What an eternal punishment must be going blind, for your sight can own anything and everything. Anyway, that´s it, there is nothing new under the sun. I walk like a diva to sit two tables away from his. Alone, always alone. I don’t need this extremely handsome guy to pay attention to me. No fucking way! No fucking way! (literally). I am self-sufficient and independent. I don’t need a man never again in my life. I can do it alone. I am strong. I`m not going to try any more. It`s a waste of time. Fucking useless testosterone only appears to disturb the harmonious peace I am just reaching. No way! I am just going to sit here with my laptop and then I will go around the city by myself. I know very well how to go across the street without clinging from someone`s hand…

The truth is that by the time you finish reading this, I have turned around and gone back to his table, and now I am sitting right in front of him, on a very uncomfortable chair, half sunk, but against all odds, in front of him. He continues to write. Such a weakness for men with dark hair, who wear Converse and have big hands. Such a weakness for men who handwrite on a notebook…I hate myself a little bit. But you know what? I am going to stay here sitting in front of him and won`t move until he talks to me.

He is totally engaged in what he`s doing and I am apparently absorbed in my laptop as well. Once in a while I take a glance at him and try to keep my mouth from watering too much. Still, fortunately, the miracle of he talking to me doesn`t take too long to occur. I no longer remember what he told me, because I was more surprised about how nice, outgoing and smiley he suddenly seemed after looking so serious. The dialogue blended with the pale kitchen walls forever.

Spanish, I bet he`s Spanish, I had been telling myself that just a few minutes before because of his dark hair, his tanned skin, his Mediterranean looks… Oh, yeah! I was right. As soon as I tell him I`m from Costa Rica, he starts speaking Spanish with a Madrileño accent. “¿De San José eres? (Are you from San José?), he asks. Score! Almost no one around here knows where Costa Rica is, and when they think they do, they confuse it with Puerto Rico and tell me that they like Ricky Martin. Now, the fact that he knows the name of the capital… Or maybe I just like his bright brown eyes so much that I`m letting him score as much as possible. “Yes”, I answer. “And you? From Madrid?”. “No, from Slovakia”. Well yeah, from Slovakia. An Erasmus year is enough for Europeans to learn languages as if they had always known them. Anyway, he prefers to go on in English after impressing me with his bilingualism (later I will learn that besides Spanish, English and Slovakian, he of course speaks Czech and Polish). “What is your name?”, I ask a little later. I need to name him so he stops being the handsome-with big hands-handwriting on a notebook-sitting at a Belfast hostel kitchen table stranger, name that, I bet we all agree, is too long to use.

“My name is…” he says. Oh my God! What a beautiful name! I had never heard it before. I repeat it, tasting it, feeling its richness in my mouth while I say it. “Nice to meet you”, I answer. No doubt, of course, so, so nice to meet you… “Nice to meet you too, Andrea”, he answers. And I was like, “Oh man, how does he know my name if I haven’t said it? One of my fears is that someday I will run into a person who`s able to read my mind. You never know! The fact that one doesn’t have telepathic powers doesn’t mean other more fortunate don’t have them. How embarrassing! If I have finally run into someone who`s able to read my mind, he already knows I have even imagined what color boxer he`s wearing… “How do you know my name?”, I ask, stupidly surprised. So he points at my laptop case, which has my name on it, my room number and my bunk bed number, 13, always 13. Thank goodness!

So it´s him and me. He, the guy with a pretty name, and me, Andrea, for the next three days.

That night we go out with a girl from Uruguay who was staying at the hostel. She ended up with us by accident, you know two`s a company, three is a crowd. As soon as she heard us speaking Spanish, she joined us for some Monday beers in Belfast.

On our way back to the hostel, after an incident that I`ll describe in more detail in our next chapter, we (he and I) had a cigarette outside, in the smoking area, a garage inhabited by a dove who shits on all who blows smoke on its beak.

A mural, an awful mural that I could have drawn, acts as the only decoration on the wall: a guy holding the Titanic on his thumb.

Culture note of the day: Belfast was the city where they built the Titanic, nautical achievement of which people from Belfast seem to be really proud a century later, even prouder than of all the other hundreds of boats that they built and never sunk.

Yes: that's the way Belfast defines itself.

We take our time to smoke. No rush. Especially me, because even though we have spent a good while together, I still don’t know if he likes me. “If he`s going to kiss me, this is the time”, I think, while we go on talking about more things I don’t remember. He´s so handsome that all the dialogues get lost in his eyes, I have already told you. And I, for a change, as it usually happens in these moments, can`t stop talking. I talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk as if I preferred having my mouth busy with any other thing but his lips.

It`s late. He has to work tomorrow. He got to Belfast just a week ago to work at a call center where they were looking for someone who spoke Slovakian. Midnight has long ago gotten lost in these North Irish streets. What a shame! Oh well, go ahead, just go to sleep. He tries to make me feel better and asks me to get together tomorrow afternoon to hang out. All right, I settle for that consolation prize for now. There`s nothing else I can do. It was foolish of me to speak so much, as much that I think I sank the moment with a huge Titanic full of useless words.

“OK”, I think, pretty much giving up. And while I am pointing at the front desk door with my right arm, I go on: “I sleep in the room in front of the reception, I think I might be there tomorrow or maybe in the kitchen, you know, internet here is bad and there it`s easier to…”

And suddenly, it occurs. While I am still pointing with my right arm, he gives me a kiss, a short, quick, and impulsive kiss that takes away all the phrases.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist”, he whispers. No. Don’t say you`re sorry. Don’t resist it, just hug me, kiss me like there´s no tomorrow, kiss me against the wall, tangle your hands with my hair, carry me on your hips and take me to that sofa over there, abandoned in the middle of the hostel parking lot, no matter if it`s cold, late or if tomorrow you have to go to work, no matter if you don’t get to be the protagonist of this novel and even if I lose one of my Converse in the garage, as the only trace of you kissing me here once.

We feel the evening falling over, as we lay down on the grass, in a little park in front of Saint Ann Cathedral. We smoke and drink beer, slowly, with our legs tangled, nothing matters. We know nothing lasts forever and that it doesn’t make any sense to save face only to become a memory in the mind of others, that in the long run will also be only memories in the mind of others that won`t get to meet us. Who cares, then, that my hair and his sweater get dry grass all over. The only face that seems to matter is that we both look as if we were a couple that had known each other all our lives.

St. Ann's Cathedral. No, sorry: no pictures from this guy available. You have to picture him yourself.

Just a little while ago I was chatting with you. Lately, it seems you decide to appear when I`m waiting for another guy in a hostel lobby to go enjoy the last sun rays of a day that is about to end and will never come back. You seem further and further: Since a few weeks ago, I took you out of that spot surrounded by walls that you never wanted anyway. I got tired. I got tired of seeing how other men were always crashing against that wall, that wall that was there only to protect your endless absence. So, this evening I said good bye in a rush, closed my laptop and went with him to lay on the grass. You only fit in my laptop, which can be easily closed and left at the front desk, tagged with a number 13. That is your place. He, on the other hand, is different. He is here playing with my hair, the same hair you don’t like.

When it starts getting cold and darker, and there is not much sun left to brighten the scene, we decide to go to the university area for some beers. Today I have walked like crazy; I had a glorious moment when, after having walked for around 45 minutes until finding the murals of one of the Peace Lines in Belfast, I realized I had left my camera memory card in the laptop, far away in the hostel front desk (yes, that place, your place) so I had to go back, and come back right away. To make it worse, I had the great idea of wearing my Converse, taking advantage of the fact that I have both of them back. Unfortunately after a while walking on them it feels like walking barefoot. The university area is far away, and honestly I felt tired to walk there, but when he stands up and reaches out his arm, I can´t say no. I can´t say no, even though it`s difficult to keep up with him (me and my weakness for tall men, who usually stride along), I can´t say no even though my feet hurt; I can´t say no even though I am several blocks away from the next beer because I feel so well walking along holding his arm… I have come to the conclusion that happiness is stupid. No wonder why they say that laughter abounds in the mouth of fools. Such simple and stupid thing makes me happy: walking around Belfast holding his arm and going across the street; who would have thought that just yesterday I was saying I didn’t need anyone`s hand to go across a stupid street.

The bar (very Irish if you look at the front, even though British might disagree) has an alley in the back that pretty much works as a terrace. Since I come from a extremely rainy country, where the sun goes down at 6 pm all fucking year long, I prefer sitting outside, where the sun is still shining, even though it is already 10 p.m.

As some very loud music is on, we talk. Well, actually, I put him through the usual questioning that all men I go out with go through. I`m not going to reveal the questions just in case any of the readers of this blog has to go through it someday, you never know. What I can tell you is that part of this famous questionnaire includes finding out whether the questioned subject has been in love. I don’t want any more stones on the road.

I have the feeling that this guy, with such a pretty and Slovakian name, has never been in love and that his life has been actually full of secondary characters. I was not completely wrong: despite of the fact that he has been in love sometime, he doesn’t want to fall in love again. He doesn’t want to have that feeling of “almost dying for that person if necessary”, as he himself defines it. “I have built a wall”, he finishes, while he takes another sip at his beer. I had figured this guy had a wall too, like mine, like yours, like the one everybody I have met on the way has. Walls. Walls, like the ones in the Peace Line of Belfast: walls that divide catholic and protestant neighborhoods, and which gates close at 5 p.m. so they don’t get into a fight. Yes, as stupid and sarcastic as it sounds, with that dumb and disgraceful little name of Peace Line, well into the XXI century. As stupid and sarcastic as his walls, and mine, and yours and everybody else`s. Walls that are built to protect ourselves from other people´s love and to stay in peace, but in the end, all we keep is fear.

“But when we walked on the street holding each other´s arms I was happy”, he tells me.

Well, not bad, at least for a while, we were both happy.

Me, at a Peace Line in Belfast. Another wall...

Then, we went to the hostel and at night we stayed talking about random stuff basically. I say a random phrase like “this is a shitty hostel” or “the house is falling apart” so he translates them to Slovakian as we sit down on the top bed smoking and letting the smoke vanish rapidly through the window, like this moment that is also vanishing through the curtains.

Then is when I realize, between phrase and phrase, that further than acquiring some basic Slovakian knowledge that I will never use , I haven’t asked him his last name. “…”, he answers. For me it`s a difficult last name, even though he assures it is fairly common in Slovakia. I will probably forget it. I will probably forget it, as well as I will forget his voice, his smell, his looks, his hands, him, until it becomes nothing more than a memory of a memory.

That night I fell asleep in his arms, saying his name.

The sun rises. His cellphone alarm goes off. I open my eyes. “Did you sleep well?”, asks a kind graffiti on the top bunk bed board. Fucking cheap hostel. The bunk beds are so old and run down that the graffiti on them is as old as the one they found in Pompeii, about which I wrote a paper on their translation as an assignment for the university, long time ago, for my Latin class.

He gets up and takes a shower. I turn around and keep on sleeping, taking a last glance at his Converse that await to take him away from me. Well, actually, mine are taking me away from him: this evening I return to Dublin.

I am falling asleep. It`s not time to wake up early to go to work yet. I still have a week before going to Germany, where I will work in a dogs ‘hotel for a month, in a little town in the northwest, near that city that doesn’t exist, where once you learned how to speak German.

I doze off. I close my eyes again and suddenly I am dreaming. I´m dreaming with other things that have nothing to do with him, that have nothing to do with you. Alone, always alone. I don’t need anyone. I don’t trust anyone. I don’t believe in anyone. The wall. Always the wall.

After a while, he wakes me up to say good bye. He hugs me good bye. He asks for my e-mail and wishes me well in Germany. He says it`s been a pleasure to meet me. He goes on with all those phrases that I do remember, not because he said them, but because I have hear them before and I will probably hear them again, from many others. Second characters. Protagonists? No. I barely pay attention to him, I am too sleepy and I just want to go back to sleep, I love to sleep, even though the sun is trying to peak through the badly arranged curtains.

And just like that, with my eyes half open, half asleep, I barely see him going out the room door. First his back, then his Converse, and then nothing, just the door. He walks away. He stops being a protagonist and a secondary character to become a memory. He vanishes, with every steps he takes, with every stair he goes down, with every street of Belfast he crosses, until he becomes a blurry memory, like a sort of memory after a dream, when you wake up in the morning. A simple dream, confusing and pale, that was never intended to become true and simply vanishes.