Last Friday I had to kill five hours of time in the Franconian province. I had to take our car to Forchheim for its anual inspection and as no one was able to pick me up I had to spend the whole morning from 8 to 1 in that small (and very traditional) town.

Doesn't sound too exciting, I know. But I took the opportunity to do some hardcore chilling: enjoying the morning sun outside a cute little café in the city center, reading a book (haven't done that in nearly 5 years!), strolling through town, taking a 5km walk to the small village where I used to live for two years and having some good old 'Wirtshaus' food in the local tavern while chatting with a local retired farmer.

Seriously, even though this might sound boring as hell and even though I was confronted with a lot of cliché provincialism, traces of pure boredom and heaps of bad taste it was maybe the best day at home I've had so far. I guess it's just very soothing for the soul to spend some time in an area where the clocks tick a bit slower and people still greet each other in the streets...



P.S. It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff one can do during a day when getting out of bed before 12 for a change.