Really. That’s always my favorite part. When I go out, to a concert usually, sometimes to meet people, or go to a restaurant, afterwards I take the train back, and it usually takes some time, and then after that I walk home.
Where I live now I have a ten to fifteen minute walk from the station, depending on which train station I get off. Usually it’s the fifteen minute walk because that means the train ticket is much cheaper. And I don’t mind the walking.
When I still lived in Munich I sometimes walked home for hours. Sometimes on high heels. You know how that goes, you are at a party, and it’s a bit out of the way, and you think you just walk to the nearest subway station instead of taking the bus because there aren’t that many buses in the middle of the night, and then when you arrive at the subway station the subway has just left, and that means you’d have to wait for twenty minutes, and so you decide to walk to the main station which is only thirty minutes away, and when you are there you decide that it wouln’t make much of a difference if you walked all the way.
Of course it helps if there’s someone walking with you. You talk and walk, two things that go together very well. But I also like walking alone.
There are women out there who don’t walk anywhere when it’s dark outside. For them each shadow must hold something evil ready to leap out at them. In all my years walking home after going out nothing has ever happened to me.
It’s usually pretty quiet then, there aren’t many people or cars around, and I can just walk home, think about the evening, maybe listen to some music on the way. Walking home makes a great transition between the buzz of the city and going out, and the quiet of my home.
My husband and I have taken to go to these free improvisation concerts lately. They start early, at 8, and they don’t last all that long so every time we go we plan to go for a beer afterwards. There’s a really great brewery next to the place where the concerts are; perfect.
And each time so far both of us just went out of the concert place, up the stairs, and then walked to the train station instead of taking the subway. We both declared that we’d rather go home soon. That meant walking for fifteen minutes to the train station, waiting for the train, taking the train, and then at the other end walk fifteen minutes again.
We have our best conversations while walking, and especially when walking home. Usually we then change from jeans to sweatpants, open a beer each, and talk some more but really, walking home is the best.
