So I’m back from the USA. “(AUDIENCE (Jeering) You’ve already told us that!”)

Anyway.

I had never traveled across the Atlantic in my life. Sure, I visited Iceland and went to Uganda, but those places were all in relatively cutesy time zones (there were other issues, with Uganda having no Winter, though, and Iceland nothing but).

So then I went to Colorado. Smack in the middle of the US of A. At first I thought: Awesome! This is like some sweet time machine thing, where I get to extend my life by seven hours! Then I lay awake at night worrying for what seemed like an eternity. I worried about my job, my holiday, that cricketlike noise outside that turned out to be crickets. Was this what being immortal felt like, I wondered. And: How can I undo it?

So after that we went to the West Coast. And then we came back. Suddenly, time snapped nine hours into the future. Nine hours! What a random number of hours! When I landed, apparently there was a new iPhone, wristwatches were back in fashion and the ice bucket challenge was over. It truly was the future!

So now I lay awake in this so-called future, a Germany lost in time, where everything is the same yet somehow different. I lay awake and I worry. Only there’s no more holiday and no more crickets to worry about.