tales from an ordinary world

2001-01-11

Last Friday, two guys got on the tram, amongst the half-asleep going-home crowd. One drained his stubby and proclaimed, to nobody in particular, "there's no love on this tram." He wondered why nobody was talking to each other, and then ranted on, as if he were trying to act like he was possessed.

Today, I sat down next to a guy who was holding a pocket English dictionary and a small cut-out piece of paper about today's weather. I figured he looked Korean. Eventually he leaned over and asked me to help him with a few words, having underlined some that he didn't understand - "isolated", "elsewhere", "showers", "coastal", and so on. He was from Seoul, having arrived here 10 days ago to learn English and then do an architecture course at uni. I can't remember the last time I talked to a total stranger on the tram.