Please bring souvenirs!

The columnist's heartfelt wish: Kalashnikov-shaped liquor bottle from Armenia

So, just sleep one more time and then the others fly to Yerevan to do jungle things there. And because you have to get information, you've already walked through the city using Google Maps, which, by the way, looks quite pretty and very colorful in places. And has many supermarkets. Which brings us to the obligatory souvenir wish list and very little hope: a Kalashnikov-shaped bottle of brandy. Black walnut jam. Rose syrup. And something like that. Of course you would pay for the listed souvenirs, what else, but the hope that it will work at least this time is minimal. Or equal to zero, because no, nothing is brought along because there is no time, or it has been completely forgotten, or it didn't exist.

Of course you would pay for the listed souvenirs, what else, but the hope that it will work at least this time is minimal.

In the case of the Kalashnikov bottle, however, it remains to be seen that there are so many of them in Armenia that they are even exported. And that there are also versions with additional small hand grenade glasses, which looks really nice. Whether the contents are drinkable doesn't matter at all, it's about having it and looking at it, nothing more. In contrast to walnut jam, which is a must-try. As well as any stuff that tastes like roses, so that one day they can compile a much-needed ranking of the top rose-producing countries.

The result of the souvenir will then be informed in the foreign edition. Detailed. And then we go back to writing columns about various miseries, freshly recovered and presumably in a bad mood because of “No, sorry, I completely forgot about the Kalashnikov bottle.” Or "There was only one and I bought it for myself." Then sleep a few more times and it's time for the double edition at the end of the year, including a party somewhere not in Kreuzberg. Plus you have two weeks off again, and so it goes year in and year out, jungle life, a long, calm river.