I had come back to Cologne to rest, and that’s all I did: Rested. I got up late, kept my foot up while I considered my options and watched news on the TV (wish I hadn’t), then went downstairs for a coffee, but they weren’t open yet. And there was a huge demo on the square, something political about pay. All the demonstrators looked like nice, sensible, kind people, maybe teachers, carers and nurses, so I say pay them more!
But the noise was pretty bad and I couldn’t walk very far, so I hopped into a taxi and went to a Decathlon just because I could. Found no long-legged hiking trousers, as I was hoping (all trousers are 31 inch leg), and didn’t really need anything else. And since I didn’t want to be walking around on the hard floor for too long, I hopped in a new taxi and went back to my square. The nice but underpaid people were now filling the tables outside the cafés, so I sat down amongst them and had coffee and breakfast with my foot up. There’s my nice hotel behind the stage thing, that’s how far I moved.
Then I hobbled back to the room, changed to a T-shirt as it was getting very warm again – perfect walking weather, grr – and B very kindly sent me photos of the way we should have walked:
And though I would much rather have been walking those trails with her, I am actually amazed at how easy it was to fill the day doing mostly nothing. I must be in pilgrim zen mode; just sitting down with a coffee and people watching in the sun didn’t feel lonely or boring or wasted at all – despite the fact that the only productive thing I did all day was to order another tiny salt and pepper shaker to replace the one I had given to B. I was actively resting my foot, which my foot very much appreciated, and I was also still on an adventure of sorts, in another country, another city, listening to a different language, and a had a comfortable room in a nice hotel. It could have been a lot worse.
But I had to laugh when I saw my two photos – same seat, same table. Industrial strength resting.
Somewhere Slowly 