Miami, USA, 2. September 2017

Dear Frank,

whenever I travel, I have to think of you. Or, to be precise, of this song of yours - "Jet Lag". Actually, just about these 2 or  3 lines from it.

"Airports make me sad. Sure they shouldn't all look the same. They're just landing paths. Boring tourist shopping chains...."

Airports really are the most unnatural, sterile, hyper-man made environments I can imagine. Whenever I walk these long corridors, queue at security checks, endure the cold light, the constant announcements, the luxury shops, I long for a forest, a mountain landscape, a waterfall or....some place serene, real, humid, filled of fresh air. My, our real habitat as humans.

Music, once again. After 18, or perhaps 20 hours of sleepless travelling, sitting in a food court in Miami Airport, and the radio plays pop songs that are slightly dated. Like this one - "Where are you going". A very familiar tune, like an old friend, not heard for long, not spoken for long. Where are you going? Starting to lose track, this is a long journey with many stop-overs, which one is next? Another city, another hostile airport, and eventually, a final destination.

Frank Turner - Jet Lag

Dave Matthews Band - Where Are You Going

Ediburgh, Scotland, August 2017

Every year in August, half the world descends on Edinburgh to have a giant party, as the city is home to not only one, but multiple parallel festivals. The one that is most accessible (because it largely takes place in the streets) is the Fringe, including chainsaw juggling and all. Check it out! 

Iceland, April 2017

Cambridge, UK, April 2017

It’s a reasonably sunny day. The museum town of Cambridge, which exhales the thirst for education and the quest for knowledge from every pore, is bustling with life. Well-dressed-and-groomed students mix with tourists of varied origins and families on a Sunday outing. Everyone has time, part of what makes for such a stark contrast with London 2 days earlier. 

I sit in front of a small café right opposite King’s College Chapel, enjoy the rays of sun and a cappuccino and wonder whether the elder gentleman at the next table might not be an incredibly famous professor, perhaps the man behind a major scientific break-through. I wouldn’t be surprised, after having learned that the pub where we went for a pint last night is the very same location where Watson and Crick celebrated the discovery of the DNA molecule, and that Stephen Hawking is still teaching right down the street at the Department of Theoretical Physics. 

It’s an impressive town, beautiful and slightly amusing, seemingly very much at ease living inside its own bubble while having the eyes of the scientific world on it at the same time.