A weekend of old traditions, early starts, a determined wife and one sleeping man showed me that rest is not always doing nothing. Sometimes it is knowing when to step forward, when to step back, and when to let the sofa win.

Sunday Begins at 4:30.

But on a triathlon morning, Sunday is not Sunday. There is no pardon. My wife is already inside the race before we leave the house. Her checklist is ready in plastic so she can mark everything. She drinks coffee with milk. I drink mine black. She eats something sweet, often one of these soft, wet cinnamon rolls from Aldi that are much better than they have any right to be.

In the car we do not speak very much. Only normal things: there is a car coming, yes, I see it. Her brain is already swimming the course, cycling the turns and running through the changing zone. At the beginning I did not understand this. I spoke to her and received no answer. Then I learned: let her run. Let her do her thing. She will tell me when something is needed.

That is one kind of rest, I think. Not sleep. Not lying down. It is the rest of not forcing another person to come out of her concentration just because I would like a conversation.

A Festival That Gets Smaller and Bigger.

The weekend had already started before the triathlon. On Friday we went to the Otterndorf Altstadtfest. For many years it was a big highlight. Today the festival becomes smaller and more uniform. The special salmon grill is gone. It begins to look like every other town festival.

For the festival, this is sad. For my wife and me, it becomes more important every year. Twenty years ago, at this festival, we gave each other our first kiss. This is where we came together. The public event gets smaller and smaller, but our private meaning gets bigger and bigger.

There is still a Ferris wheel. We also went up. From the top you can look across the town and towards the Elbe, where the river is already salt water and slowly becomes the North Sea. Some people call it the sea, some call it the river. The fact is that the water does not care what we call it. It keeps moving.

Below, at the Lions Club wine stand, you buy a one-litre bottle of Grauburgunder for twenty-five euros and receive as many glasses as you need. We met another couple whose life is also full of triathlon. The two women could talk about bicycles and races very fast, while the two men had time for wine and survival strategies.

This is also rest. It is returning to a place where your own history is waiting for you. You do not need a new attraction every year. Sometimes you need the same Ferris wheel, the same town square and the same person beside you.

Forest, the Bicycle.

My wife’s bicycle has a name: Forest, like Forrest Gump. Forest is fitted exactly to her body. My wife does not want a new one. Forest runs and runs and runs, and they are a special team.

At Sunday’s triathlon, she made a very good overtaking move and escaped from a group. Then a car braked hard in front of another cyclist. My wife also had to brake, and the whole group caught her again. Later, the changing zone was slippery and she fell. She was angry. Before a race she can say, ‘This is only training. This is only preparation.’ But inside the race another voice arrives and says: no, we want the podium.

This is only preparation.’ But inside the race another voice arrives and says: no, we want the podium.

She finished first in her age group and ninth among eighty-five women. When we came home, she still looked full of energy. I was happy tired. At about five in the afternoon we sat on the sofa and started a film. One hour later she congratulated me: I had already slept through most of it. I opened my eyes when the film was ending.

That was honest rest. No programme, no technique, no breathing exercise. The body simply switched me off.

My Kitchen, Her Tunnel.

The interesting thing is that I understand her race tunnel because I have something similar in the kitchen. When I cook, I need space around the stove. No dog and no wife. I have explained this clearly. It works for three or four times, and then curiosity returns. My wife comes in and asks, ‘What is this? What is this?’ The dachshund also appears and looks at me as if immediate food is a human right.

Now we have a system. My wife comes into my kitchen – and yes, it is my kitchen – mixes her sports drink with water, and leaves again. She knows I am not a friend of company around the oven.

This is not because I do not like people. It is because concentration needs a little territory. Her territory is the silent car before a race. Mine is the space around the stove. A good partnership is not only doing everything together. It is also learning where not to stand.

Earlier in our conversation, we spoke about my lasagne. I do not use béchamel sauce. I make more Bolognese instead, with very small cubes of carrot, onion, leek and celeriac. I add many, many, many garlics. The sauce cooks slowly for three or four hours.

People may call this cooking. For me, it is also a quiet place. Hands are busy, the sauce is moving slowly, and the rest of the world can wait outside the kitchen door.

The Rest Before the Big Start.

The next weekend will bring the main event: a half Ironman near Flensburg. My wife has trained for it since February. Her programme became bigger and bigger: more swimming, more cycling, more running. Now, in the final week, the programme becomes smaller. One kilometre of swimming instead of two. A little running. A little cycling. No action. This is the rest phase before the big start.

That sentence interests me: rest before the big start. Rest is not a reward only after the work. It is part of the work. Without it, the body cannot arrive at the starting line ready.

The weekend itself will be organised around her. We drive on Friday, making a large detour around the Wacken festival and its eighty thousand rock fans. She will eat carbohydrates. I will eat normally. On Sunday morning she will begin six hours plus six minutes plus X – this is her calculation.

For those hours, she is the centre and I take the back seat. This is not a problem. When somebody has worked for a dream, there are moments when you make space around that dream. But afterwards, I also look forward to normal life again. Training has shaped many weekends and many plans. Supporting a dream matters, and so does returning home from it.

Doing Nothing, Together and Apart.

Can we do nothing? Yes. I like lying on the sofa and watching a normal, stupid film. When my wife is running, swimming or cycling for two or three hours, I have time for myself. I watch YouTube videos about cooking, grilling and barbecuing, or I do nothing at all.

When she is in the house, we are a team. But being a team does not mean every minute must be shared. Her training can create my quiet time. My cooking can create her space somewhere else. We can be connected without standing in the same room.

Maybe this is why rest matters. A full life needs empty spaces, otherwise even good things become too loud. The Altstadtfest matters because it carries our first kiss. The triathlon matters because it carries my wife’s long work and ambition. Cooking matters because it gives me concentration and pleasure.

But the sofa also matters. Silence in the car matters. A slower training week matters. A Ferris wheel turning above the same town for another year matters.

Rest is not one thing. Sometimes it is sleep. Sometimes it is wine with an old story. Sometimes it is letting another person enter her tunnel without following her inside. Sometimes it is asking everyone, including the dachshund, to leave the kitchen. And sometimes it is waking at the end of a film and discovering that your body made the decision for you.

We imagined seven days without the internet, WhatsApp or online payments. Ismar expected peace—until the quiet reached his mother, the supermarket and the rest of the city.

By Atlantic Corridor

Ritesh’s chair was empty before the experiment had even begun.

He had cancelled fifteen minutes before our Atlantic Corridor conversation. His absence altered the balance immediately. Ritesh is a Millennial and considerably more connected than Ismar and The Mayor, who both remember life before the internet entered almost every corner of it. We had lost the perspective of the person who might have found the challenge most difficult.

There was also an irony hiding in his cancellation. Because the internet was working, The Mayor could quickly rewrite the questions and turn a conversation designed for two members into one centred entirely on Ismar.

Without connectivity, the conversation about losing connectivity could never have taken place.

The challenge was simple to describe and increasingly difficult to imagine.

On Sunday evening, Ismar would learn that all connectivity was going to disappear at midnight. There would be no internet, WhatsApp, email, online banking, digital newspapers or video calls. The disappearance would last exactly one week.

What would he do before midnight?

“I would go to my bank and withdraw some amount of money,” he said.

That was all.

For one week, he thought the experience might be rather pleasant.

“I think it would be very nice. I would like to have this experience.”

The First Missing Message

The first disruption would arrive early on Monday morning.

One of the first things Ismar normally does after waking is send a message to his mother. If he takes too long, she begins to worry and wonder whether he is all right.

He could warn her on Sunday evening not to expect the message. He would not need to move into her home for the week. Still, the missing greeting revealed something important: his digital silence would not belong only to him.

It would enter somebody else’s morning.

The next disappearance would be music. Whenever he does not need to concentrate, Ismar listens through Alexa or YouTube. He owns CDs, but his sound system has been broken for months. Without the internet, there would be no alternative.

His apartment would become unusually quiet.

Perhaps that would not be entirely bad. Some neighbours play loud music at weekends, so the blackout might provide a little relief. He might hear more conversations, more arguments and more children playing football on the sports court near his apartment.

The digital silence would not remove sound. It would uncover the sounds already around him.

Thirty Per Cent of Monday

Ismar reads national and international news online. Printed newspapers are now almost impossible to buy in his city. He does not normally listen to radio news, and he does not have a television at home.

For one week, he would probably stop following the news altogether.

He would miss his daily overview, but he did not think this would be a serious hardship.

“I think I will survive that.”

He has heard people say that they became less stressed after deliberately stepping away from the news. The Mayor understood the attraction. He often scans several newspapers but finds himself reading only the headlines because the detail can become too depressing.

The harder losses would come from activities that give shape to Ismar’s week. Our English conversation would disappear. So would his French class and his online contact with the Curitiba conversation group. He estimated that approximately thirty per cent of his normal Monday would be removed.

He could open one of the English or French books in his apartment. He owns grammar books and novels in both languages. Yet even this old-fashioned alternative would reveal a modern dependency. When he meets an unfamiliar word or grammar point, he normally checks it online.

Without that help, he would simply have to continue more slowly.

Or he could use the empty time differently. Late in the day, when the sun was lower, he might take a long walk towards the airport—something he had not done for a long time.

Late in the day, when the sun was lower, he might take a long walk towards the airport—something he had not done for a long time.

At first, this still sounded like rest: fewer appointments, less news, more reading and a long walk.

Then we left the apartment.

By Thursday, the Shelves Might Be Empty

The internet does not merely entertain us. It quietly coordinates the ordinary systems we assume will continue working.

Supermarkets order and organise supplies electronically. Restaurants record orders on tablets. Delivery businesses depend on apps. Traffic systems, petrol distribution and aviation all rely on connected technology.

The first day might be manageable. From the second day, Ismar imagined products becoming scarcer. By the end of the week, supermarket shelves might be empty.

He normally shops with his mother on Thursday. He would not rush to the supermarket in panic, but he expected many other people would.

There would be crowds. He might not find exactly what they wanted.

They could adapt. If there were no milk, he could make orange juice. Some foods keep longer than others. Cabbage would survive better than lettuce. A household can make substitutions for a week.

The difficulty begins when an entire city tries to make those substitutions at the same time.

Cash created an even larger problem. Ismar would withdraw money in advance, but what would happen if everybody had the same idea and the cash machines emptied? What about people who depend on cards and do not keep cash at home?

Without electronic payment, some people might have no way to buy food.

Asked to imagine himself as a city councillor, Ismar proposed a temporary local currency, issued on paper and connected to each citizen’s identification number. He also recognised the scale of the problem almost immediately.

“It would be a mess,” he admitted, especially in a city of around one million inhabitants.

Aviation presented another limit. A local paper currency might help someone buy vegetables. It would not help a traveller trying to reach São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro or another country.

“One week will be very, very problematic for some people,” Ismar said.

By now, our week of digital rest was beginning to look less like a holiday and more like the slow failure of a city.

Care Cannot Simply Go Offline

The most serious consequences appeared when the conversation reached health care.

Ismar helps his mother with shopping, appointments and medical matters. Almost all her doctors use computers to access previous examinations, notes and patient histories. Only one still writes everything on paper.

A doctor could still listen to what a patient said that day, but without the earlier information, the consultation would become less complete. Even arranging the next appointment might depend on whether the clinic still owned a paper diary or knew how to work without its digital system.

For a known interruption of exactly one week, many appointments could simply be postponed. People might remain calm because they knew the system would return on Monday.

The greater danger would be uncertainty. If nobody knew when connectivity would return, Ismar thought many people and institutions would become frustrated rather than quickly creating alternatives.

This was the moment when the meaning of digital rest changed completely.

Rest is something we choose.

A medical system that cannot reach a patient’s records is not resting.

The People Who Would Disappear

By the middle of the week, more than ninety per cent of Ismar’s usual contacts would be unreachable.

He would still see his mother. He could continue physical activities such as Pilates and ballroom dancing. But even people living in his own city could become inaccessible because WhatsApp is the only way he normally contacts them.

Most of the numbers and addresses he needs are stored on his phone. He does not keep them all in a paper agenda. Writing a letter would not solve the problem if he did not know where to send it.

His birthday would also fall during the disconnected week. The Mayor could not send congratulations because he did not know Ismar’s address. Even if he discovered it, a letter might arrive after the internet had already returned.

Strangely, Ismar still believed he might enjoy the quiet.

He is comfortable in his own company. He can spend an entire weekend inside his apartment, perhaps leaving only for a walk.

The Mayor imagined a different possibility. Perhaps people in Ismar’s condominium would finally come downstairs. The building has a shared outdoor area, a sports court and space for children. Residents might begin talking, organise a barbecue and rediscover the people living only a few floors away.

Would Ismar join them?

“Probably not,” he said. “Because I like to stay alone.”

It was the most Ismar-like answer of the afternoon.

The internet might disappear. The neighbours might appear. Ismar could still choose the peace of his apartment.

Yet he was careful not to treat his own preference as a model for everybody else.

For many older people who live alone, social media and messaging are not trivial distractions. They reduce loneliness and create friendships. Losing those relationships for a week could deepen depression and create real danger.

Families separated across cities and countries would suffer. Small business owners could lose their income. Restaurants operating only through delivery platforms might stop functioning. Freelance workers might produce work they could neither send nor be paid for.

For Ismar, the week might feel like a holiday.

For somebody else, it could mean invisibility.

Fifteen Minutes

On Friday evening, The Mayor introduced a temptation.

For fifteen minutes only, the internet would return.

What would Ismar do?

He knew immediately.

If he were not already with his mother, he would send her a message saying that everything was all right and that he would see her again soon. Then he would contact two or three people he cared about most.

He would not begin with the news.

He would not open YouTube.

He would not check what he had missed on social media.

He would use those fifteen minutes to reassure people.

Beneath the banking, newspapers, language learning, music and delivery systems, the most important purpose of connectivity turned out to be very simple:

I am all right.

I am still here.

The Freedom We Built Away

When the imagined week ended, Ismar did not plan to abandon the internet. He would restore the tools that support his language learning, music, payments, information and relationships.

But the exercise had changed the question.

People often say that freedom is the thing they value most, Ismar reflected. Yet we have built a society in which paying bills, buying food, arranging medical care, contacting people and doing our work may all depend on one connected system.

We call this convenience because it removes effort.

We rarely notice that it also removes alternatives.

Some younger people may never have written and posted a letter. Some may not know how to order food without a phone. Many businesses no longer maintain a workable paper system. Even people who remember the old methods may no longer have the addresses, equipment or practical access required to use them.

“We are a kind of modern slave,” Ismar said.

He did not exclude himself.

“I use the internet and other connected systems to buy things, to pay things. I’m not an exception.”

At the beginning of our conversation, one disconnected week had sounded peaceful. By the end, Ismar still thought he could enjoy it—but his quiet apartment would exist inside a much louder crisis of empty shelves, interrupted care, stranded travellers, unreachable friends and people unable to access their own money.

Digital rest is restful only when it is voluntary, limited and supported by a world that remains connected while we step away.

The final irony arrived as the conversation ended.

The Mayor explained that Ritesh’s late cancellation had forced him to redesign the meeting. Technology had made that possible within minutes. The very system we had spent the afternoon removing had rescued the conversation.

Ismar smiled and offered the only suitable farewell.

“Have a nice week, sir—and with a high-quality connection.”

Sometimes rest isn’t about doing nothing. Sometimes it’s baking bread before work, laughing at a child’s unexpected song, and looking forward to a camping weekend with a slightly questionable slushy in your hand.

For a long time, I thought rest meant stopping.

Lying on the sofa. Sleeping longer. Doing absolutely nothing.

But if I’m honest, that’s not really what my life looks like.

On the morning of our conversation, it was already around 33 degrees outside. Inside the kitchen it wasn’t much cooler. Before I even sat down to talk, lunch was cooked, salad was prepared, and the dough for tomorrow’s bread was already rising. My colleague was on holiday, so I was covering the work alone, and I had recently been discussing new personal goals with my manager.

It wasn’t exactly a peaceful morning.

And yet, I didn’t feel unhappy.

Busy doesn’t always mean unhappy. But it does make you think about why rest actually matters.

The pressure never completely disappears

Like many people, work has its own rhythm.

There are deadlines, meetings, goals and the feeling that there is always something else waiting. My manager is talking about retirement one day, new objectives the next, while I quietly hope that some changes might come a little sooner than expected.

Life keeps moving.

Home keeps moving too.

Sometimes it feels as though the to-do list can reproduce overnight.

The strange thing is that if I waited for life to become completely quiet before I rested, I would probably never rest at all.

Rest can sound like laughter

During our meeting we somehow wandered into talking about pets.

That quickly became spiders, rabbits, dogs, chickens and all sorts of animals.

At one point my daughter started singing in the background while we were talking about chickens. Suddenly our serious meeting had its own little soundtrack. Instead of interrupting everything, it became one of those ordinary family moments that simply makes you smile.

You can’t really schedule moments like that.

They just arrive.

Looking back, those unexpected interruptions might be some of the most restful moments of all, because they remind me that life doesn’t have to be perfectly organised to be enjoyable.

Looking forward matters too

By the end of the week I wasn’t dreaming about expensive holidays or luxury hotels.

I was simply excited to go camping.

The tent had already been put up at home to make sure everything still worked before we left. The weather promised plenty of sunshine, perhaps a little rain, and hopefully a chance to slow down.

Of course, camping also comes with its own traditions.

Mine apparently involves a slushy machine.

We ended up laughing about my favourite frozen drinks—especially the ones that are perhaps a little less innocent than they first appear. One favourite combines Malibu with pineapple or passion fruit. Another has a Dutch name that literally translates into something that made us joke it sounded like “dirty water.”

I’m fairly sure I’ll enjoy my “dirty” slushies this weekend.

Hopefully not enough to earn the headache we also laughed about.

Rest isn’t empty

When people hear the word rest, they often imagine silence.

For me, it can be bread dough rising on the counter.

Children singing in the next room.

Packing a tent.

Laughing over unusual English translations.

Sharing stories about pets.

Sitting outside with family while the evening finally cools down.

None of those moments remove the responsibilities waiting for me when Monday arrives.

But they remind me why those responsibilities are worth carrying.

I’ve realised that rest isn’t something that magically appears once everything is finished.

It’s something I have to choose, even while life is still wonderfully, noisily, imperfectly happening all around me.

Babette’s “Dirty Water” recipe

Bachwasser (translated as “creek water”)

Ingredients

• 1 bottle (0.7 liters) Doppelkorn (German grain spirit)
• 1 bottle (0.7 liters) Vodka
• 400 g Iced tea powder/granules (Zitronen-Eistee / lemon flavor is standard)
• 3 liters Still water
• 1 kg Ice cubes

Equipment

• 1 clean bucket (at least 5-liter capacity) or a very large cooking pot

Instructions

1. Mix the base: Pour the 3 liters of still water into your clean bucket.
2. Dissolve the powder: Add the 400 g of iced tea granules and stir thoroughly until completely dissolved.
3. Add the alcohol: Pour in both the entire bottle of Doppelkorn and the bottle of vodka, then stir to combine.
4. Chill: Dump in the ice cubes right before serving to keep the punch ice-cold. If desired, you can garnish the mix with fresh lemon slices.

My warning light glows politely, my gramophone refuses to optimise me, and sometimes the best way to recharge is to travel hundreds of kilometres to a concert.

Perhaps we need a warning light instead.

Mine would not flash aggressively or play loud music. Loud music would be cool, but it would require headphones, and I do not always wear them. My warning light would glow politely, becoming brighter as my need for rest increased.

I imagine one of those small lamps on an old record player. Does anybody remember them? The light would not demand anything. It would simply glow, quietly and soothingly, until I finally noticed it.

Coffee, Shoes and the Inner Devil

When rest begins properly, there is a sequence.

First comes coffee: strong, black and always freshly ground. Then I sit down and take off my shoes. The headphones go on, followed by music.

A few snacks would enhance the experience. The exact quantity is difficult to establish.

At this point, my inner resistance usually begins fighting a fierce battle against my inner devil. One side says that snacks are unnecessary. The other side has already opened the packet.

This is more or less my resting station. It does not require a spa, a mindfulness coach or a twelve-stage relaxation programme. It requires coffee, music, no shoes and the temporary defeat of unnecessary responsibility.

An official rest inspector might disagree.

The first thing such an inspector would say upon entering my home is, “Oh my God.”

The place is small, and there are too many things. According to the inspector, I would probably have no right to rest because the untidiness itself would be considered unrestful.

My answer would be simple: being a genius allows me to manage this chaos.

Then I would show the inspector the door.

The door is still in a tidy zone. Outside, in the stairwell, it is especially tidy because it is empty.

Rest First, Except in Emergencies

My basic rule is: rest first.

This is excellent advice whenever the to-do list contains nothing important. The difficulty is deciding what “important” means.

My definition is quite strict. Nothing is important unless it is absolutely life-threatening. In a genuinely life-threatening situation, rest first might not be the best decision. In most other situations, the task can probably survive without immediate attention.

Rest gives us back things we temporarily lose. Patience, curiosity, humour, imagination and even the desire to speak to other human beings may all return after we stop.

Patience, curiosity, humour, imagination and even the desire to speak to other human beings may all return after we stop.

Patience is especially important. When you are caught in a vicious circle of hectic activity, stopping opens the door to it. There is a reason Rome was not built in one day.

It would probably not have been improved by a self-optimisation app either.

The Gramophone Knows Better

An old gramophone understands rest better than a modern app.

The gramophone does not try to take control of me. It requires calmness and patience. I have to sit down, choose an old 78 rpm record and place it carefully on the machine.

Nothing happens instantly. That is part of the pleasure.

A self-optimisation app would behave differently. It would monitor the situation, judge my choices and perhaps warn me that what I was doing at that moment was unhealthy. It would transform sitting quietly with a record into a measurable performance.

This is the central problem with professional rest advice. The varieties of rest I would refuse to buy—even with a loyalty-card discount—are the ones that tell me exactly how I must relax.

They would only stress me.

The same applies to the imaginary robot that works brilliantly but becomes suspicious whenever nobody gives it a task. I would explain that human beings need rest. A robot may argue that the day has 24 hours, but a human cannot function for all 24 of them.

To help the robot understand, I would give it a self-optimisation app programmed to maximise its performance. Eventually, its systems would begin short-circuiting—the robot version of becoming ill—and it would automatically shut itself down.

That might finally teach it something about being human.

My Recharging Stations

Some forms of rest do not look restful from the outside.

Travelling hundreds of kilometres to concerts, coming home and then travelling hundreds of kilometres again could appear exhausting, inefficient or slightly mad.

The secret ingredient is not the travelling.

It is the fun, the pleasure and the memories that remain afterwards. Those memories become energy. They keep me going during the time between concerts.

A concert is simply a recharging station.

This is why a full, interesting and slightly chaotic life may sometimes be better than a perfectly rested one. Nobody really knows what a perfectly rested life feels like. The people searching for it are too busy optimising everything.

They are planning their rest, monitoring their rest, improving their rest and assessing the quality of the rest they have just completed.

By the time they finish, they may need to rest.

Bring Back Boredom

I would also like to bring boredom back into society.

If boredom were an endangered species, I would release it on every street corner. It could act as a serum against the modern pace of life and the constant traps demanding our attention.

Boredom is not lethal, although people often behave as if it is—especially when children are involved.

Parents, and particularly mothers, can carry the burden of finding activities to keep children occupied all the time. Every empty hour has to be filled. Every quiet moment becomes a problem requiring a solution.

But boredom can create space. It allows the mind to move without being directed. It may produce imagination, curiosity or nothing at all.

Nothing at all is also allowed.

There is no need to achieve something every time we stop.

The Unwritten Warning

The Swimming Club anti-handbook on rest probably needs a warning page.

My contribution would be one sentence:

Do not read this if you want to be perfectly rested, because searching for perfection is not restful.

Of course, this advice should never actually appear in the handbook.

It might cause people stress.

For me, rest does not always mean doing nothing. Sometimes it begins when the daily routine disappears and I can simply enjoy the people around me.

Our family holiday begins in a way that does not sound very relaxing.

At 6:30 in the evening, I have a football match. After the match, I will go home, get into the car and drive to Croatia with Julia and our two-year-old son, Jaron. We plan to leave at around ten o’clock and drive through the night.

The journey will take about eight hours. I will probably drive the whole way.

My preparation is very easy. I need shorts, T-shirts and underwear. That is more or less everything. I can pack my own things quite quickly.

Jaron’s luggage is the special one. Julia prepares the things he needs, and my job is to put the heavy bags into the car. Before a family holiday, there are clothes to wash, bags to organise and many small things to remember. The days before the holiday can be more exhausting than a normal week.

We do not have a special dinner on the evening before we leave. We do not open a bottle of wine to celebrate the beginning of the holiday. I do not slowly enter holiday mode.

I play football, get into the car and drive for eight hours.

A Holiday Without a Plan

We are travelling to the area around Pula in northern Croatia. We will stay in a very large house with a group of about fifteen people.

Every family will have its own bedroom and bathroom. We will share the kitchen and living room. The house is big enough that we can spend time together, but when somebody needs a little break, they can go back to their room.

I like this idea.

We booked the holiday only three or four weeks before travelling. For me, this is much better than booking a summer holiday in January or February. When you book so early, you have to wait a very long time before the holiday finally happens.

I also have no big plan for what we will do in Croatia.

A friend has already found a five-hour boat trip. Maybe we will join, but I am not sure whether Jaron will be happy on a boat for five hours. We will decide when we are there.

In these situations, I am very spontaneous. I do not need to organise a big adventure for every day. We will be close to the sea, and we can visit the city when we want. We can eat, drink, talk and spend time together.

In these situations, I am very spontaneous. I do not need to organise a big adventure for every day. We will be close to the sea, and we can visit the city when we want. We can eat, drink, talk and spend time together.

That is enough for me.

The Mayor challenged me about this. He asked why I would drive eight hours to another country if I could meet people, eat good food and have good drinks at home.

The answer is the daily routine.

At home, the routine is always there. In Croatia, everything will be new: a new place, a new house and a different view. We will not have the same jobs and tasks around us.

For me, this change is the nice thing about a holiday.

A fantastic holiday does not need to contain many activities. In the best case, I come home feeling relaxed. I have had a good time with the other people. I have enjoyed good food and good drinks. I have also had a little free time from being responsible for Jaron every minute, and hopefully he has been easy to handle.

When these things happen, I am happy.

Making Monday a Good Day

Croatia is a family holiday, but I also have another kind of rest ritual.

My Stammtisch normally meets on Monday evening. We usually start at around 7:30 or eight and stay until ten or eleven.

Monday is a very good day for the Stammtisch because Monday is normally a bad day. The weekend is finished, and everybody has to start working again.

But then we have a great evening waiting for us.

During the day, the first messages arrive. Who will join us? What time will we meet? Later, we sit around two tables that have been pushed together. There is no agenda. The topics simply arrive, and the conversation flows naturally.

We talk about what happened during the weekend. We make jokes. We tell stories. Somebody may have been at a wedding or experienced something interesting. We share the latest information from our lives.

The conversation, the people, the humour and the drinks all belong together.

When I leave the Stammtisch, I normally have two feelings. I am a little sad because the evening is over, but I am also happy because, in the best case, we have had a great time together.

The Stammtisch changes my Monday.

The Conversations About Nothing

Once a year, the Stammtisch becomes something bigger. We travel together to Mallorca.

For several years, it has been difficult to find a date when everybody can join. One person has no time, then another person has no time. This year, it looks possible that the whole group can travel together.

I am very excited about it.

Normally, I hate mornings. But when we drive to the airport for the Mallorca trip, I think I will be very happy—maybe a little too happy—even if it is very early.

It is difficult to explain what makes this trip so important.

Julia may ask me what we talked about. My answer is often: nothing.

We do not spend the trip discussing important subjects. We have stupid conversations. We laugh, tell stories and have fun. From the outside, it may look as if nothing meaningful is happening.

But that is exactly why it feels so good.

During the rest of the year, we are correct people. We work, take care of our families and carry a lot of responsibility. We have appointments, decisions and things that must be done properly.

On this trip, we can leave those points behind for a short time.

We can only live our life.

Of course, this kind of freedom should not belong only to us. Julia also has opportunities to travel without me and Jaron. She has planned a trip to Berlin with my brother’s wife, including a Tokio Hotel concert. While they are away, we will stay home with the children.

They can let their hair down too.

This Is the Key

At the beginning of my conversation with The Mayor, I was tired. I had played football the day before, and apparently I looked tired too.

But when we started talking about the Stammtisch and Mallorca, something changed.

The Mayor noticed it. He said that talking about the trip had made me more alive.

I told him, “This is the key.”

Rest does not always look quiet. It is not always sleeping, sitting alone or doing nothing. Sometimes the body may still be tired.

For me, rest can be a new house near the sea. It can be fifteen people sharing a kitchen. It can be a Monday evening around two tables. It can be an early flight with old friends and a weekend full of conversations about nothing.

The important thing is that, for a little while, the daily routine disappears.

And then the energy comes back.

After two weeks in the desert, drinking warm water and sleeping in a tent, an ordinary cold Kronenbourg became one of the best beers of my life.

An ordinary beer becomes a very good beer after 100 kilometres.

To be honest, after 100 kilometres, every liquid is good. Water is good. Coffee is good. But beer is very, very good.

The same is true after a hard day. Maybe I have been working in hot temperatures. Maybe I have spent the evening cutting and moving wood. When I work with dangerous machines, I drink only water and coffee. First the work must be finished. Then I clean the tools, put everything away and go home.

After that, I like five minutes of nothing.

Then I drink one beer.

Maybe two, but normally one.

I do not drink beer every day. During the week, I drink a lot of coffee and water, and perhaps one or two beers in total. The Mayor called me a social drinker. Then he changed it to a thirsty drinker.

I think thirsty drinker is more accurate.

The First Sip Is Not the Beginning

The first sip is not the official moment when work is finished. The work must already be finished.

For me, the ritual begins before the bottle is opened. The machines are stopped. The tools are clean. Everything is in its place. I sit down and do nothing for a few minutes.

Then the beer can come.

It must be cold. That is the most important rule.

Music or no music does not matter. Silence is fine. Noise is fine. A bottle is fine. A glass is fine. At home, I normally drink from the bottle. In a restaurant, I take a glass.

The world can come to an end, but when the beer is cold, it is okay.

Even the time is flexible. Six o’clock in the morning is normally not the correct time for beer. But after a village festival, when the evening has continued through the night, perhaps with a barbecue after the festival, six in the morning can still belong to the evening.

Then it is acceptable.

The Best Beer of My Life

The best beer I remember was in Djibouti.

We had spent two weeks in the desert. We slept in tents and drank warm water. The work was difficult, but it was also interesting. We had done a good job.

We had spent two weeks in the desert. We slept in tents and drank warm water. The work was difficult, but it was also interesting. We had done a good job.

When we returned to the city, I went with friends and colleagues and ordered a very cold Kronenbourg.

Kronenbourg is not a special beer. It is a normal beer. You can buy it in many places, and drinking the same beer somewhere else would not create the same experience.

But after two weeks in the desert, it tasted completely different.

That beer belonged to the heat, the tent, the warm water and the work we had completed. It belonged to the people sitting with me. Without everything that came before it, it would only have been a Kronenbourg.

At that moment, it was one of the best beers of my life.

This is the strange thing about beer. The taste is not only inside the bottle. The taste also comes from the day.

After a good day, the beer can feel like a reward. After a bad day, it can mark the end of something. I sit down, drink slowly and feel the bad things leaving my brain and my body.

The day is finished. Tomorrow can begin later.

Barbecue Is a Ceremony

I enjoy drinking beer with other people, especially around a fire.

A barbecue is not only about eating. A barbecue is a ceremony.

First, I prepare the wood and make the fire. Then I sit and watch it. I drink my beer while the flames grow and the wood burns. There is the smell of smoke, the sound of the fire and the quiet time before the food is ready.

The beer belongs before the barbecue, during the barbecue and after the barbecue.

Janita said it is the same for her and her husband. Sometimes they stand together beside the fire. Sometimes they sit. The important part is the atmosphere.

I understand that completely.

The Mayor and I even began planning a competition between our firebowls. We would see which one could produce the biggest flames. He has a church next door, so there may be certain safety considerations.

A Natural Health Drink

Beer is made from barley, hops, cereals and water. These are all natural things, so I can make a very strong argument that beer is a health drink.

Would a doctor survive my explanation?

Probably.

Would the doctor agree with me?

That is another question.

The real point is quantity. One beer is one thing. Drinking many beers every day is something else. I have known people who drank beer, wine and schnapps every day. I have also seen a very young man with cirrhosis of the liver.

That is no longer a joke.

We have a saying: the dose makes the poison. A little may not be a problem. A lot can become a very serious problem.

Everything is good in moderation.

Of course, as The Mayor asked, the difficult question is: who exactly is Moderation, and where can we find him?

The Moment Around the Beer

I have tasted beers in many countries. Some were strong, some were weak, and some were not to my taste at all. I once tried a beer from northern France with about fifteen percent alcohol. One was enough. Two would have been an entirely different conversation.

But the strongest beer is not automatically the best beer.

The best beer may be an ordinary one after hard work. It may be beside a fire with friends. It may come after walking a long distance, after a hot day or after finishing a job carefully.

The beer itself may be nothing special.

The moment around it is what makes it good.