Koln Germany, February 2012.

I hadn’t seen Matthias since High School.  But here I was on a train heading to his home city Koln, for Carnival.  He first wrote me back when I was in Spain in June.  “You gotta come to Koln for Carnival.” It sounded nice but farfetched, the plan was to hop down to Morroco and then a boat across the Atlantic, it didn’t flow that way.  I was in Berlin, then Monchengladbach and here it was Carnival time.  We talked about our time together back then, what we were doing now, to both of us, it was amazing, he had seen my home so many miles and years gone, and now I got to see his.

“If you ask a girl for a butzson, it means kiss and that is, you know, a fun thing to do during Carnival.”

Sounds good, I thought, the waitress came back and asked if we wanted anything.  I said “ya, ein butzson bitta.”

“Oh, I’m sorry but we are out of pizza, you have to go across the street for that.”