My Evening Walk

On a typical evening in the life of moi, assuming that I haven’t convinced myself to take advantage of this city’s vast plethora of potentially scintillating activities, I make dinner and head to the Ground Zero Coffee. There, I sip sip on tea (I switch the flavor up from night to night to make it exciting) and putz around on their Internet.

My walk to said 喫茶店 (coffee/tea house) begins with interesting characters that inevitably inhabit the corner in front of my apartment. I then pass the Come Back In bar where chugging contests occur loudly in the back garden followed by the Essen Haus, which invariably smells like sauerkraut, and then tiny concrete island, the crossing to which nearly ends in a collision with moving vehicles every time. After waiting several minutes, posed and ready for the small white-lit man to indicate my turn to cross, I beeline it across the street in a desperate effort to clear the heavily trafficked street during my allotted 10 seconds. Once safely across, I breathe a sigh of relief and continue past the small gawking boy outside the Vietnamese restaurant who watches me surreptitiously with a shy curiosity that questions my existence as a believable resident of his world. Finally, after passing the day-care center, which I have yet to see a child at (yes I’ve passed this place during the day), and forging my way through the spider colonies that stretch across the sidewalk from bush to tree, I reach my destination.

Sitting near the window will typically afford you a good view of an interesting variety sights. In fact, tonight I had the pleasure of watching a man drive by on a golf cart decked out with the removable tarp window one might find on a Jeep Wrangler.

My way home is much the same as the way there. This time without the small boy and when I reach my corner, aforementioned interesting characters have leased their space to two or more people just itching to fight. Who would have thought there would be so much to say about a block and a half walk…