Someone once told me that it is a sign that you are a local the minute people start asking you for directions in a new city. Well, a new town as this case maybe. Taking the bus from Salzburg to Fuschl (the little town that has recently become my home), I was approached by this Libyan lady and her son. They seemed to be the only ones in the bus who seemed more lost than me with the language and the place. I very happily drew them a map of Fuschl and told them where to walk around and have a coffee. It almost felt like those elaborate excel sheet maps I used to make of my neighbourhood in Mumbai.

One thing that niggling me was why there were 2 Libyans hanging around in this remote place in Austria. As the case maybe, they took a 3 month vacation to avoid the war. Can you imagine that? Going away on a holiday when your country was at war. That made me think. What kind of social position they are in to actually take a vacation. Scary isn’t it?

Anyway, the son (who seemed absolutely bored with the stunning lake and sunset) kept coaxing his mother to leave. She seemed rather reluctant to leave Fuschl, while all her son wanted to do was be in sunny Malta, where they had been the previous week.

All in all, war in Libya, tourists in Austria, not something I would have even understood sometime ago. Not that I understand it now.

This escape from reality is the new reality.