tl;dr: no phone

Ich hab mein Telefon in Kyiv liegen lassen und hab deshalb sofort ein paar sehr ruhige Stunden in Wien. Weil halt eben quasi mit normalen Mitteln kaum kontaktierbar. Aber sonst ist alles gut gelaufen, wirklich, es war eine schöne Zugfahrt, in meinem eigenen Abteil. Daneben das Klo, da ist mir durch die Heizungsanlagen manchmal ein bisschen ein Aroma durchgekommen, aber es war eh viel finster und ich bin halt nicht am Fenster und über der Heizung gesessen und dann hat das auch gepasst. Der Zugbegleiter war wirklich sehr lieb mit seinem bemühten Deutsch, das hat mir wirklich gut gefallen. Und selbst das Wienerische war ganz ok, wenn man s nur am Bahnhof mitbekommt.

Aber weil ich im Zug Zeit hatte, hab ich der D. meine Erlebnisse, die zur Hinterlassung meines Telefons geführt haben, zusammengeschrieben. Und ich hab mir gedacht, das stell ich jetzt einfach her, weil ich hab s eh schon zweimal geschrieben und muss es jetzt nicht noch auf Deutsch übersetzen. Insofern:

Here’s the point though: My phone decided to stay in Kyiv. By now I went through my bags and my pockets and I’m ninety-nine percent sure that I’ve dropped it, when I rushed to the train station. You see, I was late. I had spent too much time having fancy breakfasts (Eggs Benedict with smoked roast beef) and even when I finally got up I continued to stroll around town under the watercolour blue sky that we had this morning. Or even at lunch time. But there was a point when my brain finally did the maths so my legs could do the running. “You know, that you have about twenty-seven minutes until your train leaves,” said my brain. “Maybe twenty-nine, I’m not completely sure what the time was.” “Oh shit,” said I, “that’s not going to be enough.”

So my legs said: “We got this”. And thankfully it didn’t have minus ten degrees today, so even though my lungs were protesting, claiming they would have to do most of the work and the legs couldn’t just take all the recognition, the whole ensemble got going in the face of brain’s calculations, in the face of the blue dot on the map and the distance to the orange star and the other orange star. Because I had to get to the hostel first, where they had outrageously charged me an extra 15 Ukrainian Euros for keeping my luggage for a couple of hours. That’s beside the point, but it was not ok even though I did not protest. So I arrived at the hostel, lungs proclaiming loudly how hard they’ve been working, while I would have been able to melt down a decent sized snowman with my face alone.

Thank you so much for everything, I called over to the two girls sitting at reception while I rushed out with twelve measly minutes to go. “That’s not enough,” said brain. “We can’t run with the backpack on the back and the small backpack in front, the balance is all wrong!” chirped up the legs in unison. “Wh… wh… we-he’re still a bit out… of… breath,” wheezed the lungs. “No rest for the wicked,” it probably says in the bible. And I did try to run and while it must have looked like a walrus in a fat-suit, I was beyond worrying about my looks. (For the moment.) My brains were now humming the melody of We’re Not Gonna Make It by The Presidents of the United States of America which put some pressure on the general optimism but at least has a rhythm going that kept me shuffling along. And I was optimistic, because my brain was busying itself by telling the story of how I would be telling the story that I nearly wouldn’t have made it but I did in the end, because of legs and lungs and brains. And look at me and the adventures I have. And I did make it, but really because of nice lady with the car.

I was looking out for taxis or equivalent and I did spot a car that had written uber at the side. Which, you know, I don’t know how that company works and what I know doesn’t help. But sometimes the shirt is closer than the coat and as somebody had just gotten out of the car, I tossed all moral considerations to the side and sort of wobbled over to the car to knock at the window, open the door and finally ask the driver whether she could please, please take me to the train station. She told me that I had to call the number on the side of the car. I said, I couldn’t and – what must have been confusing – held up my phone to make the point. I would pay her in cash, I said. I think she told me to get in, at least that’s what I did and she didn’t react to it like you react to someone getting into your car without your approval. The traffic lights had switched to green and she started driving with my backpack basically still hanging out the open door. But I managed to get myself and my luggage into the car and close the door behind me. I think she wanted to make sure that it was really just the train station I wanted to go to. You know, because it was just a kilometer ahead. And I wholeheartedly agreed with her, especially when she said the word that starts with pas– and is the name of the train station. A bit amused she again pointed at the train station straight ahead and still I would agree with her. That out of the way, we relaxed a bit and I think she commented on me apparently being very late for my train. Well, I said, yes, I am a bit late for my train. She was calm and had a nice voice and even complained a bit when the car in front of us would stop at the corner and we had to stop and wait for them to get moving again. And when I got out of the car with a generous seven minutes to go, she wouldn’t take my money but just wished me good luck or safe travels or god’s speed or maybe all or none of these things. So I got out and rushed into the station, checked my tracks and then had to run along the whole track because of course my compartment is at the very end of the train.

But I made it. Into Ukraine with the selfless help of a driver and out of Ukraine with the help of a driver.

And while I was still running about in that lovely train station, I started to realise that I couldn’t find my phone in any of my pockets. Finally, on the train and after checking all possible places, all the pockets and the bags, I’m pretty sure I must have left it in the car. Of course, the adrenaline for nearly missing my train helps not worrying too much about the loss of my phone now. Besides some artsy pictures of the Golden Gate against the picturesque blue sky I took today, I had transferred all recent pictures to my computer yesterday so not much of a loss there. And on the other hand, of course I count a bit on that nice driver and that she might find the phone or might have already found it while I’m writing this little story down for the second time after the first got swooshed away by the stupid email programme’s failure to safe my email on the hard drive when I tell it to do so and furthermore its failure to show a warning message when I try to close the thus unsaved message. That hurt more for a moment than the loss of my phone.

As I said, I haven’t given up yet. And I’m asking you to play a role in the climactic last chapter of my travel adventures, be my eyes and ears on location. I think my phone shows my email address on the lock screen, so if they find it soon enough there’s a chance she’ll get in contact, fingers crossed. Regrettably, my phone’s battery drops quicker than Obama’s microphone, so there is only a narrow time window. To be honest, maybe I won’t even get this message sent before that battery runs out. And of course you could call or maybe send an Ukrainian message, because I think that also shows up on the lock screen.

Aber ja, hat sich leider niemand gemeldet derweil. Und ich hab mich außerdem daran erinnert, dass ich mir in den letzten Wochen und Monaten, in denen das Telefon in erster Linie ein Aufnahmegerät, eine Fotokamera, ein Stadtplan oder ein Zeitungsabonnement ist, die Batterieschonungseinstellung und schlimmer noch, den Flugzeugmodus zu aktivieren. Jetzt hätte ich ja sogar so ein Programm am Telefon, mit dem ich es über s Netz lokalisiern kann. Aber leider, leider, ohne Netz kann ich s auch nicht lokalisieren. D. ist in Kontakt mit den ubers, aber ich bin derweil einer, der in der Ubahn sein Notebook aufklappt, um seine Mails zu checken, weil das die einzige Art und Weise ist, die ich kommuniziere zur Zeit.

Und eine mehr eine technische Anmerkung: Wenn ich einen Text in diese Oberfläche kopiere, macht er mir manchmal Doppelblancs in den Text. Ich weiß nicht warum, ob nach einem Muster oder nicht. Offen gestanden, hab ich nicht die Nerven dazu, das zu erkunden. Es gibt nämlich wenig, was mich derart aus einem Text herausnimmt, wie Doppelblancs. Und ich hab schon mal probiert, den Text in ein Dokument zu übertragen und dann Alle Ersetzen… und so. Aber wenn ich s zurückkopiere, sind sie wieder da. Insofern bitte ich um Entschuldigung, ich hab ein paar rausgenommen, aber wenn ich welche übersehen habe: Ich bin nicht schleissig geworden auf sowas.