A corner of Heidelberg Castle seen dimly in the early morning mist – Photo: C.NHAT
I answered everyone’s questions that there is WiFi in the hotel, there is WiFi at the meeting place too and I don’t need to use 5G much on my phone. But this is not completely true!
Heidelberg “Familiar but Strange”
After each meeting, I walked around the “science city” of Heidelberg. It took me a while to remember that if I didn’t want my phone to run out of SIM capacity quickly I needed to take my phone out less and less and stop relying on the “cell phone.”
Usually Google Maps will only guide you to main roads, rarely pointing smaller roads in the same direction. I hesitated for a moment, but decided to take a shorter path covered with trees and moss towards the Neckar River.
It turns out that the path leads to several dew-soaked meadows, where visitors can lie down and relax in nature or read a book while admiring the 809-year-old Heidelberg Castle in an “antique” setting. Can.
That’s why Heidelberg suddenly feels “familiar yet strange” to me.
Without Google Maps, I discovered some small roads that very few people like to travel on – Photo: C.NHAT
The temperature in Heidelberg is usually around 12 degrees in the morning. But around 10 o’clock, the weather turns cool again with golden sunshine, ideal for biting apples, peaches and reading books while feeling their juiciness…
Although I love reading, it is almost difficult for me to concentrate on any book in Vietnam because of the constant flow of messages and apps on my phone.
When the Internet is “interrupted” in Heidelberg, it feels very refreshing to immerse yourself in your favorite book. When you’re tired, simply stop, look into the distance, look at the sky, look at falling leaves, or reward yourself with deep, refreshing breaths before returning to the thin pages of a book.
Walking down a small road along the River Neckar, I saw a spectacularly beautiful sight – Photo: C.NHAT
Due to Internet restrictions, reading is not interrupted by messages on the phone – Photo: C.NHAT
When lost in Heidelberg, you find more than you lose
It seems that today’s youth often prefer to wear headphones, while surfing the internet or reading information on their phones even while sitting among many people.
It is not very difficult to understand this. Social networks are free because what they really crave and want to capture is user data. Through modern algorithms or “persuasion techniques”, social networks are constantly being improved, making us fall in love with them and spend more time on them.
The more time we spend on social networks, the more the “network” understands us. Many studies even show that social networks now understand us better than relatives.
These serve mass surveillance capitalism (an economic system focused on the sophisticated monitoring of user behavior, the exploitation of personal data to generate profits through the above mentioned commercial activities). Internet, social networks).
If you keep your eyes on your phone, it’s probably hard to miss the poetic beauty of delicate soap bubbles hidden somewhere on the streets of Heidelberg – Photo: C.NHAT
A peaceful corner of the Neckar River, where many couples choose to confide in – Photo: C.NHAT
And when I don’t get the opportunity to use the Internet, I find ways to chat with people sitting nearby on buses and HLF scientific conference buses…
Some people refuse to talk to strangers. But some people were excited to know that I came from a country 9,500 kilometers away with countless differences in culture and worldview.
Whenever Germans start a conversation with a stranger, their attitude is cold. I see it as a challenge to improve my communication skills and biases.
Of course, without the aid of technology, it’s not uncommon for me to catch the wrong bus and get lost in Germany. But in return, I know I’m not wasting my time because what I worked hard to discover on my own would probably be more meaningful and imprinted in my mind than a click on the phone and an answer in some notes. . music …
Heidelberg Castle is sparkling and magical in the dark – Photo: C.NHAT
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