… have made me think again about Europe, the world and finally about our way in general. One could call it irony, since in many respects the United States embody exactly the opposite of what, until recently at least, the majority of EU Member States or their inhabitants seemed to stand for. Or just call it a very logical and comprehensible consequence of an almost four-week stay in (a small part of) this large country. The quintessence of these considerations could be summarized on the basis of two incidents that took place within little more than 14 hours – but on two different continents. Both stories are quickly told and each have to do with a bus driver. The first of the stories took place in Seattle, from where we flew back to Germany. The rental car station there is located outside the terminals and consequently all people have to be driven there by shuttle buses. This is usually a bit annoying, but this time the short trip became more kind of a small but still memorable …