Woman at the next table films her third slow sweep of the entire restaurant. I am stuffing long reins of mozzarella in my mouth. I wipe my face and go over. ‘Hi. So sorry to intrude. I just really don’t like being background scenery in your panoramic videos, I just want to eat my messy […]

2

After an exceptionally difficult night and a day of doing difficult work, I said: I need to go out. Let’s go someplace we can have a glass of red and a plate of food. I had in mind Italian but the restaurant was closed for some sawing and hammering, we ended up at a Swiss […]

Was quite excited to work out last night by decoding the allergies notice in a Korean BBQ restaurant (‘alergia’) which began ‘en caso de…’ – ‘in case of…’ – that ‘casa’, house, must mean your case. It’s your shell. And mi casa es su casa. My case is your case, we all breathe the same […]

4

Unable to stomach any more Spanish food I went out and found a tiny Thai place. It was up a narrow staircase from the paved street where people wander in the evening in great numbers; the combination of Thai intricacy with Spanish kitsch in the decor was eye-watering. The girl tried to seat me at […]

5

I walked into one of those joyless lunchtime buffets so ill-suited to Chinese cuisine. The name of the place was China-Haus, China-Garten, something like that. They had long ranks of bains marie, tepid with cornflour. Another woman came in behind me, rather young with a lot of glossy hair spilling over her parka, and stood […]

10

God, I am so in love right now. Partly because of food and partly because of language. We decided I needed to really touch down in Germany, not to be always looking back over my shoulder at sunstruck Queensland. We went for a long walk, through the marshy parks where the back of every sign […]