Why, What, Where and When

It has been a while that I went on a major trip. True, I was visiting different universities in the States in January 2015 which also involved some unforeseen circumstances, but in essence, I have been quite inactive since my West African journey (Morocco/Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal) in January 2013. Lazy person that I am, I confined myself to touring France in the summer holidays, and to leisurely chess tournaments at the Adriatic Sea. At least, this helped me to learn some Croatian/Serbian. The most beautiful language on Earth for swearing. Totally the best! Other languages are crooked. They are u kurcu. Total losers, picka materina. Ask Melania. She is Slovenian, but who cares.

Still, you cannot spend all your travel budget on coffee and pelinkovac at some (admittedly beautiful) Dalmatian beach and admiring the beauty of red-and-white flags. So I applied for a two-months research fellowship at the University of Sydney. February to April 2017. Of course, for no other reason than escaping European winter. True, there is this super-interesting research group directed by Paul Griffiths, and the 10th MuST conference in philosophy of science, but in the end, what counts is a 25 degrees more on the temperature scale. Who wants to accept an invitation to speak at the AAAS in Boston? This is something I can confidently leave to my postdoc. (Hi Felipe!) The real cracks solve the problems of the world over a flat white, the Australian answer to cappuccino. It is surprisingly drinkable.





The trip also includes five days in Hong Kong for presenting research and conducting experiments, and a talk at the APA Pacific in Seattle. And some strange places in Oceania which are not exactly known for their academic prowess. At least they have rocks. Huge rocks. Or was it beaches? Who cares. Anyway, all this is an excellent reason for finally crossing the International Date Line (Datumsgrenze in German). That weird line where you either gain or lose a day of your life if you cross it.






I will cross it for the first time in my life. Unternehmen Datumsgrenze. Of course in the right direction, from West to East. Did you expect anything else? Germans always expand eastwards. Or at least they try. It is more fun and less boring.

The total trip (flights only) looks like this.





Unfortunately, you cannot start every eastbound operation on 1 September or 22 June. For my modest purposes, 2 February has to be sufficient. Stay tuned!