A Walk Along Lake Aussenalster

The boats are docked for the evening. Across the calm water, the Atlantic Hotel stands majectically on the other shore.

I saw these ducks swimming in formation. How unafraid they are. Where I came from, they have good reasons to be fearful. But it is difficult to blame the hungry. This however is ideal, there is no reason to fear and there is no reason to hunt. Do the lucky inhabitants of this land know how much this peaceful scene means to some?

We have no leisurely dusk. From a hot afternoon to the rapidly approaching night, there is hardly anything in between. From a searing sun to a pitch dark night that brings out the feeding mosquitoes are just fleeting minutes that drown faster than a sinking ship. A walk for us is almost always in sweat. I love my land because I was born there and I love its imperfection too but at times I wish my land was different. Like the leisure of a creeping dusk and a walk in cool crisp air.

It was after nine p.m. There is still light. It was summer. It was still cool. You know, this is very difficult to explain to my country men if they had never been up North.

Swans on a lake. Our most romantic vision. Our dreams of beauty and grace. Can't think of our equivalent. The peacock? Too showy.

When swans go to sleep, what is their dreams?

In many ways Lake Aussenalter seems like a dream for someone like me. Yet, I know I don't belong or can be happy here for long. But I was happy to be there. And happy to take it back with me. I will probably never be back there again. That's okay for I never leave. I never leave any beautiful places I had been.