Dear Editor,
I have been commuting from Cologne to Bonn for several years now. Bonn is packed full of NGOs (e.g. The U.N.), aid organisations, ministries (ones that didn't move to Berlin) and students. So it is interesting to listen to conversations on the train. Before Covid it always irritated me that the "smart people" (both in their dress and their intelligence) were often talking about their long-haul holidays: Sometimes I could hear two or three conversations going on at once about various exotic destinations.
With Covid and "Working from Home" all that stopped. But now people are drifting back to the office, so it is interesting to once again listen to their conversations. And, indeed, it wasn't long before I could eavesdrop on two well-dressed 30-somethings (with working schedules which apparently kept them shuttling between Brussels, Bonn and Berlin) talking ... about their holiday plans!
They were both eager to get away to sunny destinations and one of them had concrete plans to spend two weeks in Japan. His colleague found that to be "geil". "Geil" is the German word for "randy" which is used in youth-culture to express extreme enthusiasm. In this case, for a trip to Japan.
So where is the world now? Climate-change is cranking up into a new, quite terrifying gear and we are contemplating cutting off Russian fossil-fuels ... but "the bright and the beautiful" (in this case in Bonn) can't contain their enthusiasm for jetting off to distant places.
Something is very wrong!
Regards
