We keep full-time jobs and part-time dreams, sprinting between them with a phone full of listings that promise “hidden gems.” On weekends we run for the station, still half on work calls, and throw ourselves onto whatever train will take us to the next maybe. Sometimes that train moves at ten kilometers an hour for reasons no one can explain. Sometimes its engine and brakes are not on speaking terms. Sometimes we’re fifty minutes late and already texting the agent: so sorry, still on our way.

“Fifteen minutes from the station,” the listing says. Fifteen minutes can mean a sunny stroll, or thirty minutes along a forest road where wild boar consider their options in the middle of your lane. We don’t have a car yet, so it’s Uber—when Uber exists. The app is confident days in advance and then coy an hour before, then thirty minutes, then five. Or silent. There’s sometimes a taxi, if you can find a number. And if it happens to be on their route. The driver shows up smiling, narrates the town’s entire recent history (it was better before they removed the fountain, traffic is a nightmare now), and quotes the 20-minute ride at 51€, card accepted. She reminds us we’ll need a ride back, too, (you’ll have to coordinate that with my office though).