Nothing Goes as Planned
Last fall, my much-delayed Megabus dropped me off in Chinatown at 2:30 a.m. I had seven percent battery life, four dollars in cash, and no idea how to get to Brooklyn.
E-mails from David in the Week before Pentecost
I could almost hear his eyes glazing over. The remove in his voice suggested that the ocean between us was a puddle compared to the expanse between our brains.
In Germany, A Language Test Not Just For Refugees
In 2050, when the first histories of Germany’s integration project are written, the country will be graded on its efficacy in educating refugees in its native tongue.
Seeking Refuge
How much further from home is the 40-year old tailor from Afghanistan who lacks the native words to ask for his family’s daily bread?
A Question in Cologne
Faced with what the Justice Minister called “a new dimension of organized criminality” (a stark departure from “relaxed”), Germany is asking itself questions.
Learning from Emmanuel
You understand the subject, could identify, spell, and define each subsequent word or phrase, and are then met with a verb that can’t possibly make sense in the imagined understanding. What’s left is January North Sea coastline.
“…viele Mauern abzubauen”
We were born, not in the shadow of a wall that divided nations, worldviews, and cultures, but into the sunlight streaming through its cracks.
Why We Wander
As a writer, I want to say I’m haunted by this question—why do we travel? In reality I’m not “haunted” by the why of travel so much as annoyed by its insistence on being answered.
Looking Beyond Bavaria
Rudi is a Catholic priest. He looks like Bavaria, if Bavaria were a person. What I mean by that is this: if the self-proclaimed Free State of Bavaria could pick a person, any person, to act as its mascot and all-purpose representative, it would be Rudi.
