From
time to time every one of us, who stays just long enough away from home, wants
to return to his family and friends. Especially to occasions, such as Christmas
when the whole family gathers, the desire to see your love ones grows.
Hence
I packed my things and returned for a holiday trip back to Germany, Dresden. It
was great to see most of my dear friends and my whole family for almost three
weeks. I spent Christmas in my hometown Dresden and new- year in Berlin with
friends. In between, I visited Köln, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Krefeld and Soest to
give a visit to friends in other parts of Germany. To have a bit of snow before
every little rest of it melted away right before Christmas was nostalgic as
well. Especially as I spent the time outside with my friends in the valley and
rock tops of the Elbsandstein Gebirge during a hot wine (Glühwein) hiking tour.
In
many parts of Germany live is indeed wonderful: (cultivated) nature, parks,
cheap food in a huge variety, a lot of space for relatively cheap rents, very
good health care, and an almost free education system. Germans should be a happy
folk, but when you wander through the streets of cities in Germany you immediately
notice the absence of smiling people or anyone with a happy face expression. I
don’t want to generalise, but as I spent most of my free time outside of the
house I couldn’t avoid noticing this. And it is not the first time. Whenever I
came back in the last three years, from Japan or Australia, I realised how
unhappy people seem to be, or at least how unable to express their happy emotion,
if there is one. It made me sad to see, that so many people in the country
where I grew up, were apparently not happy. Instead of compliments I heard complaining!
I
can only hope that people start to value what they have and will be happy and
thankful for whatever they got! Life is too short to be grumpy and unhappy.
Death can be always around the next corner!
