I read German fairly well but write it awfully - so here is my English review of a wonderful little book for everyone who thinks their daily lives are unfair and an endless struggle of overcoming bad luck. The book reassures the reader that he or she is not alone. The author Stefanie Mitzke travels the world for a year on third class with a cabin bag full of credit cards that don’t work, hotels that reject her at the reception and always in the middle of the night, of course, of smartphones that run out of energy when it is needed the most and adopters that are left at home. Add to this various illnesses, blizzards and taxi-drivers that only accept cash.
Life really isn’t fair on our young travelling author but that doesn’t stop her. She just keeps moving on without complaining while paying outrageous repair bills on her car and bicycle: “Das Leben ist nicht für die weichere!”
Some of the mishaps are her own fault, some are pure bad luck and some are due to the fact that when you travel to New York on a very low budget you get very low budget cold water in the showers. But if the alternative is not going Stefanie prefers to go on any low budget adventure and accept the risk of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
I won’t spoil your reading by revealing the happy ending but at some point her long and unbroken line of misfortunes stops. Suddenly, Steffie gets luck on her side and she becomes herself again - or maybe for the first time (?). The Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard expressed it this way a hundred and fifty years ago:
„Etwas zu wagen bedeutet, vorübergehend den festen Halt zu verlieren. Nichts zu wagen bedeutet, sich selbst zu verlieren.“
”Und plötzlich war ich ich”.