madhatter’s coffee.

… stands short for Edinburgh and will be mu hometown for the next nine months. The standard question I got after that statement in the past few weeks mostly sounded like: “Huh, why didn’t tell that to me?”

The answer is, I forgot. I didn’t knew it either. Well, I planned it since last September but life goes strange ways sometimes. This personal course led to Berlin and the question where I would be in September mysteriously seemed a bit unimportant. Finally, somewhere in the end of July, a letter arrived, stating that I was determined to stay the next months in splendid isolation together with a bunch of pubescent kids pretending to teach them some of my mother-tongue.

Right now I’m sitting in an Internet cafe somewhere on Leith walk bored to death and wait for my future landlord to reply to my e-mails. Nevertheless, Edinburgh is quite a nice city, if you know someone. I think I don’t have to tell you that the cityscape is wonderful, the hilliness of the landscape stirs the blood of an ol’ Suebian and weather is quite nice – for Scotland, I assume.

The folks around here is quite nice, too. Though I’m not sure which is the original one ’cause there is the Edinburgh Festival taking place. Actually EDI holds more tourists than real inhabitants at the moment. And the only ones that really leave no doubt about their heritage are the shopmen who talk a Scottish accent as broad as an American bullfrog. Everyone else is quite easy to understand and once more I feel ashamed for my American. Especially when I sat in the most alternative cafe I could find, with free internet-access, (whooohaa!) the possibility to work there (which I consider) and of course a German medical student. Who not only talked broadest American, but even had the attitude of the connected stereotype. And talking such to the stereotype of a Scottish Highland warrior. Long Hair, short speech. And the calmness of an ox.

And since I’m not a bit better I’ll now leave for this exact cafe… with the prospect to talk a bit less.