T. is Here!

Yay! Hooray! T. is visiting! He agreed to write the blog entry for this weekend, so what follows is all his. I threw some pictures in for good measure, but he took them. It was so good to see him. I'm going to kidnap him and keep him here.

Well, while J. was enjoying the special Halloween edition of her spinning class, I was winging my way across the globe to visit her in Deutschland. It was my first visit to Europe since I was 17, but I could barely focus on that fact. I was just too excited to see her again. Two months is just way too long.

Of course, I should have been more specific about what I was wishing for. After a full day of travel (25 hours with the time change), I arrived in Hannover, and did get to see the beautiful J. immediately. But it was through a giant glass wall! Apparently, in Hannover they feel that you should collect your checked baggage before you leave the security area, and in order to entice you to hurry, they politely place your loved ones right in front of you, but out of reach. It was both funny and frustrating. I entertained thoughts of finding a way over, under, or straight through the barrier, but I figured being able to hug J. immediately might not have been worth the subsequent 10-15 years with only my cellmate Bubba (or would it have been Dieter?) for company.

My luggage did eventually make an appearance, putting an end to my pantomimes of love against the glass (Germans have Windex, right?), and I did finally find the exit, and found the real life, huggable J. right on the other side. It was easily the best feeling of my life, getting to hold her after so long, and though it did take a little while to get over the self-consciousness that all the anticipation had created, it was amazing to be there with her.

Soon, we found ourselves on the train back to Minden, just getting used to being together again and talking together without any electronic or digital mediation. It was wonderful. Honestly, the travel back to her house—exactly as I pictured it from her descriptions here—is still a blur. I do remember the cold rain that we had to walk a half-hour through from the train station to her home, but even that was mostly filled with my “Ooh! Tell me about that” and “Ooh! Cobblestones.” and “Ooh! What is that giant, god-like glowy thing up there on the mountain?” (It was the Kaiser monument). For those of you who don’t know, I tend to blabber on and on—and about absolutely anything—when I’m excited, and I’m sure that by the end of that walk, J. was ready to call a cab and send me packing again.

But she didn’t, and after lugging my sleeping accommodations up the stairs to her apartment, we got all settled, and crashed out. As I would explain to all the people—and there have been tons—who would ask about J. and how my trip to see her was, over the next few days, we just enjoyed being together again, hanging out. I had brought several good ol’ American movies along, and we watched those. I got to see downtown Minden, and the crazy Martinitreppen (a steep series of steps that connect one level of “downtown” to another), and J’s school where she teaches, and some really old buildings. We ate out, enjoying: Döner Kabobs (kinda like big pitas, but with thicker bread and more stuff), Currywurst, some schnitzel, a mystery meat with wild mushrooms, and some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. My favorite may have been the crazy, big, alcoholic ice cream sundaes that we had at a giant, shiny Eiscafe one day. J’s favorite, I’m sure, was the fish dish she had that was smothered in about a litre (see, I can be European…) of mustard, accompanied by mustard potatoes (with ham). Mmmmm.

That last German delicacy was served us in Hameln, at the Rattenfängerhaus restaurant, named in honor of the man we know as the Pied Piper. Though the best part of my (too short) time in Germany was just getting to spend time with J. and to see what her German life looks like—and, of course, to develop new strategies to shower in her hobbit bathtub—we did get to take a day trip together, and ended up in storied Hameln, where we followed little white rats painted on the cobblestones to various historical sites, including the city museum, the “wedding house,” which sported an external Glöckenspiel that we got to witness play, complete with an oversized cuckoo-clock-figure reenactment of the Pied Piper story. It was a great trip, and J. did get to discover many, many ways in which her home state of Pennsylvania figures in Hameln history (including the fact that the current “official face” of the Pied Piper is an expatriate from Harrisburg). Some other interesting facts of note: according to the legend, the Pied Piper showed up in Hameln in 1284, and before it was all over, 130 children were lost; the Hannoverians lost to the Prussians in some battle outside Hameln in 1866 (this was illustrated by means of a giant toy soldier setup in the city museum); and people still live in old houses that have historical significance, so if you’re going to ooh and aah, just be quiet about it.
I could go on and on about this trip and how good it was to be with J. and to get to experience a little bit of her everyday life once again. As I said, I tend to blabber. But I will rein it in and just close by saying that as wonderful as it has been to read about the “Adventures of J. in Germany” here, getting to be a small part of those adventures in person was magic. I highly recommend it to all of you out there in reader-ville, and I can’t wait to get back. Very, very soon.