Hello, sorry for not telling you but I’ve been in Berlin this week. I’ve just got back home and I already have post-holiday blues. I had a really good time discovering a new city and remembering what it’s like to be somewhere where you don’t understand a word they’re saying to you (it’s been many years since I’ve holidayed in a non-franco or anglophone country). But there were a few ‘turning points’ (à la History Boys) that really make me think and reflect.

Like homophobia-driven confrontations on the dance floor of a night club in a 21st century capital city. Excuse me?! I mean, in the middle of a Lebanese shopping centre or an Abu Dhabi business meeting this sort of behaviour wouldn’t be altogether unexpected, but is it really in Europe? Inversely, I understand also that seeing two guys necking one another on a night out isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but tolerance is the name of the game, or failing that just not behaving like a total savage.

Otherwise my impressions of Germany on my first ever visit were good. A French guide book I bought talked for pages and pages about the ‘coldness’ of the Germans, though I found the truth to be the polar opposite. I actually think the French could learn an awful lot from the Germans’ openness and hospitality. In fact the thing I enjoy the absolute most about travelling to different places and meeting new people is, as cliché as it may sound, seeing how much we all stand to learn from others. How to act, how to think, how to live. To drop the frustrating coincé and superior attitude of the French, the ignorance and pig-headedness of the English, in favour of a more German attitude. And I’m sure there are some that would do it better than the Germans, so I would love to find that place and learn even more.

Anyway, I’m all alone in my flat since I flew back a day earlier than all my friends due to work commitments. Yes, the post-holiday blues have been brought on much quicker all thanks to the fact that tomorrow morning I have to get myself out of bed to go to work like an idiot for 12 hours for the most horrible man in Paris who is always happy to count the till at the end of the night but has never to date thought about the benefits of thanking the staff that make him the very wealthy and odious man that he is.

He too has a lot to learn.