The day I stood in the line at the immatriculation office of Free University (FU) Berlin, I had no clue what studying would mean. I was confused by the whole system as such. Obviously, the newbies standing in line with me weren´t the right people to ask either. After a while I was admitted into the room where two ladies of advanced age put you down as students. I sat down, showed my credentials, and without looking up the lady said for the 100th time that day: "So what subjects do you want to be enrolled for?"

I, proudly: "History!" She, unmoved: "...and?" Me, irritated: "And what?" Well, it turned out that I just couldnt study history by itself - regulations demanded I take one or two more side subjects. Hm. There I sat. After a second, I remembered that in school I had always liked Political Science. Relieved, I offered to the lady: "History and... Political Science!" She, still unmoved, replied: "...and?" Now I was really dumbfounded. Thankfully, it occurred to me that our parents had always gone on holidays to Ibiza and the Canary Islands with us and that on our last trip I had been able to order a Coke with ice in fluent Spanish. Clearly, this was a founding stone. "Spanish!" I exclaimed to the elderly lady.

5 months later I found myself on the airport of Mexico City pleading with the officer on duty at the "Lost Baggage" booth.

One night, there was to be a catholic service in the compound´s chapel. A Bavarian guy I had met on the road from tel Aviv, Ralph, and I were the only young people around, and the Mother Superior invited us to Mass most cordially. I was reluctant at first. Being of Lutheran confession I didn´t want to participate and embarrass myself in a ceremony the rules of which I didn´t know. Ralph however, catholic to the core like all Bavarians, accepted no excuses. And so to church I went, subdued, half dragged, unsure of what to expect.

When we arrived we found a small congregation. All in all, there were no more than 20 people. A few pilgrims, a priest and two nuns visiting from a monastery in Germany, the nuns of the school staff, the two of us, and the head of the school, an old priest who can only be described as saintly. Pater ("Father") Düsing was his name. He was a tall, slender man in his late 70s then. He had long, silvery white hair and a beard of the same shining colour. Most of the tmes I had met him, this beard framed a heartfelt smile that would light up the things and people around him. When we had talked in the living room hall of the castle house one afternoon, I told him I was a soldier on temporary escape. He laughed and answered, yes, he knew what I meant. He had been a Feldwebel, a German non-commissioned officer, in the war.

We hadn´t fully arrived at the chapel that night when Pater Düsing stepped up to me and asked if I wouldn´t like to do the Reading. I had no real idea what that meant, but I knew I could read, so I said yes. As the service started, I kept an eye on Ralph and did what he did with two seconds delay. When the Reading was due, the Pater smiled and waved me close with his hand. I saw the book lying open, and with trembling voice I read aloud what was written there.

Then, afterwards, the Pater ascended the pulpit and began the sermon. He talked to us with the smile he always wore, and his voice was full of certainty. He didn´t speak about ideas or ideals - to be fair, I don´t remember what he actually spoke about, content-wise. But what he did and what I remember is that he transmitted the word of God, with an unfailing sincerity that gripped me by the throat. He spoke of God as if he had just met him at the bus stop. As if God was a close friend, a neighbour who we all knew and liked and who, more than anything, we all had met and seen many times. No ifs, no interpretations, not the shadow of a doubt.

I had never been part of a ceremony so beautiful and real. I have never been to this day. When I returned home, again, I was saved.

The larger part of that journey I stayed in Jerusalem. Luck made me knock on the iron door of a walled compound just outside of the Old Town. A place, a school, a pilgrims hostel run by a catholic order. Bunk beds. Breakfast in the halls of the castle-like building that had been erected in the early days of the 20th century on grounds donated to the German emperor by the Turkish sultan. The Palestinian girls working in the administration of the place showed me some strange places inside the Old Town. They had to drag me along since every couple of steps I stood open-mouthed. Via Dolorosa. Until I saw the street sign I just hadn´t thought that this street had ever been for real. And the Life of Brian-esque comedy of watching a large group of elderly pilgrims squeezing through this narrow street, carrying a giant cross that casually swept all sorts of cheap merchandise off the hooks of the crammed Arab souvenir stalls as they passed by. Much shouting and swearing ensued. Then the pilgrims would stroll further down the street and stop at another location of Jesus´ path of suffering. Doing so in their many, they plugged all traffic in Via Dolorosa. More shouting and swearing ensued. And much smiling on my part. All was full of scents and sunlight.

A year after my first journey, I had changed in a way I didn´t like but couldn´t help. It was September again, and I had become so sick and tired of the olive attire. It wasn´t the hardships of life in the barracks - in fact, these hardships were softships really if compared to what military service meant in most other countries of the world. Even in places only 20 kilometers away. I was with a military intelligence unit, stationed a stone´s throw from the Iron Curtain, and there was no slouching about in the mud for us - that was for our pitied fellows in the Infantry battallions. Or for the guys serving in the East German Army. Since we watched, listened, located their units every day, we knew a lot about them. Their uncomfortable uniforms that would give them a rash after marching a couple of kilometers. On our end, I remember one NCO - StUffz Risse. What I remember about him is that over the years he had washed his uniform so many times that the olive colour had come off. Beneath it, his uniform was grey. The clearest Feldgrau you could have imagined. I still see myself standing on the parade ground and thinking: Funny. If you wash away the NATO color, just a little too much detergent, it´s the Wehrmacht colour. And it looks good. Real good.

That September, my colours had come off, too. I was desperate to get away. From my ridiculously low pay I bought a ticket to Tel Aviv. I snorkeled through the coral reefs off Eilat and saw the Lake Genezareth shimmering from atop the Galilee mountains. I marveled at beautiful girls taking off their uniforms at Jaffa beach and wearing shiny yellow bikinis underneath. On a warm Sabbath morning, i stood for hours by the roadside on the outskirts of a town called Safed trying to get a ride to the coast. But above anything, I discovered Jerusalem. This journey, this city, the tangible spirits, the beautiful people. I was saved then. This I will never forget.

I was 19, and it was the summer before I would be drafted into the German Army. I was afraid to go, but it seemed to be the easier way - anything else would have meant to leave the path of least resistance that was so neatly laid out for me. But before I´d go, I had to get away for a while. It was not even that I was looking for something specific. What could I have been looking for without knowing anything? I just had to leave for a while.

So my parents bought an Interrail ticket for me - the magic train ride that would go on for a month, all over Europe, no paying extra anywhere. Amsterdam, Hoek van Holland-Calais-London, Edinburgh, Birmingham, London-Calais-Paris, Lyon, Costa Brava, Barcelona, Madrid, Marseille, Nice, Rome, Florence, Vienna - and home. 30 days. In Madrid I had some sort of breakdown of exhaustion. In the night train crossing the alps I shared the cabin, alone, with a stoned Austrian lingerie model. Years later I met a friend of hers in the secluded room where Israeli airport security take you to get you half undressed for a body search.

What has become of all these places? Edinburgh I´ve never seen again, while London became an occasional place to work. As did many of the cities, with cheap air travel becoming ubiquitous and me turning from an insecure white boy into a "media professional" over the years. Lyon I haven´t revisited. Marseille.

Back then I got my taste. Before I had had no idea if i´d even like travelling. It was just that I had to leave for a while. That was all. And now...