back to home...

when we came back to Zurich and Amsterdam airports, it was cold and raining, and the people there were so much more isolated. already on the plane, i believe we all could feel it very clearly. it made me feel much less secure and I immediately missed Alexandria for that nice atmosphere of all being together in the same place and time, even if everyone still went about doing his/her own business, but I felt a stronger sense of connection there.

to me it felt a more like an extended safety net, with all positive and negative consequences. in Holland there is almost no real safety net on the streets, everyone is for themselves and for me as a native Hungarian that always hurts (however in Budapest where most of my family lives, I believe this isolation has also spread a lot in the recent years, as if it was the prize for being "Western").

so when I was at the train station in Rotterdam and waited for my tram to bring me home, it was much more of a threat to me when it didn't come as scheduled but much later, when it should already have come by twice. I felt much more exposed, in the pouring rain, and I believe that I could sense the completely blank non-awareness of the people in the other trams that came by. just totally not aware of someone else, almost like machines...