In which we telescope a pita moon, falafel stars.

And all swirled out up there in the great, glimmering Tzatziki Way.

(Currently writing under the photogenic influence of The Royal Observatory Photo Contest. It's out of this world/galaxy.)

Falafel: one of the lesser known side effects of Wanderlust. Here's how it goes down: I wake up, breakfast myself, and upon realization that I have absolutely nothing planned, depart. S-Bahn. Einsteigen. (Umsteigen.) Aussteigen. (Translation: Board the train. (Change trains/connect to other means of transportation.) Leave the train. ---> schneller gesagt auf deutsch, oder?) Explore. Walk. Wonder. Hours. Hunger. Falafel. Amazing! 

It's just. that. easy.

I've had three close encounters (over counters) in the past week with this "deep fried ball or patty made from ground chickpeas and/or fava beans" (thanks, Wikipedia) and, now that I think of it, I really should have photographed them and created some sort of coffee table photo anthology book of Hamburger Falafel Variations (ie. in Hamburg, not made of hamburger)... Hm. They've just all been wildly different so far. Intriguing delectability.

Falafel #1 cost €2,50 and came from a cute, little, suddenly-stumbled-upon Middle Eastern restaurant on a side street. 

Notable for: light beige internal composition, anis seed, pleasant pita wrap, skimpy on the salad filling, grumpy middle-aged female cook/cashier. 

Overall experience rating: 5.5

Falafel #2 cost €3,50 and came from the Döner stand in the local S-Bahn station. 

Notable for: uneven sandwich composition on ahunka white bread, toasted, yellowish brown internal composition, very much fried and crispy, too much tzatziki, skimpy on the red cabbage, red-shirted employed male with thick accent polite (but not friendly). 

Overall experienced rating: 4.5

Falafel #3 (the close encounter of the third kind) cost €3 and came from my go-to falafel spot of years gone by, across the street from the S-Bahn in a trendy, very alternative neighborhood. 

Noteable for: whole wheat pita, green internal composition, stuffed with vegetables (lettuce, pickled cabbage, carrots, little bitty potatoes (they're okay smothered in hummus), fresh parsley), the perfect hummus-tzatziki ratio, cinnamon, poised in paper and foil for immediate indulgence, pleasant male falafel-creator.

Overall experience rating: 8.5 

Falafels #1 & #3 actually come from the same neighborhood, the Schanzenviertel. This is one of the most... colorful parts of the city, where you never go barefoot and where peoplewatching is at its prime. Also home to great cupcakes. A robust outlet for pent-up Wanderlust.

After much wandering (and perhaps not so much lusting), I settled down on a hill in a park with my falafel and my book and didn't get up for almost three hours. There were frolicking four-legged and two-legged creatures, young people with guitar-strumming fingers, and early autumnal zephyrs that occasionally invited wanderlusting leaves to venture on windsurfing adventures overhead. 

Once the grass had solidly tattooed itself into my calves, I moved in an easterly fashion to seek out other entertaining green places, ie. the Wasserlichtorgel in Planten un Blomen. As some of you may remember, this is a water/light concert that plays nightly in the major water feature of one of Hamburg's nicest parks from May to September, with a new show every two weeks. It's totally kitsch. I love it. (It also provided me with an award-winning photo two years ago.) I found myself a spiced chai and poppy seed pastry and plopped myself down amidst the great population of Wasserlichtorgel enthusiasts to enjoy the show. I couldn't help noticing that I was the only person there alone, but whatev's. It was an almost perfect day. This is when a UFO landed in the pond:

My phone then proceeded to hop out of my pocket for a better view. I was almost back at the S-Bahn station when I realized it was gone, went all the way back to where I was sitting, couldn't find it, searched through my bag, couldn't find it, etc. "Hey, universe! A little help, please?" Fully believing that it had found another pocket to live in, I went back to look in the grass one more time. Stumbling around in the dark with my eyes on the ground, nearly tripping over snoggers, I heard someone call out to me. "Missing a phone?" Ten points for the universe.

I was about to go out on another adventure, buuuut it appears to be raining horizontally. What's up, gravity?

(Can you imagine if we still had movie trailers like this in our lightning-fast American culture? Oh, that's right. We don't.)