We took zero photos today! My apologies. We got up at our “normal time” (just before 7 am) and I went for my first run since we got here, which felt good, especially since it was mostly through green space (along some of the same routes we have been taking when talking, so I also didn’t get lost!). Then we had a light breakfast and spent some time catching up on our computer work and packing–in other words, a somewhat boring morning, but in service of our impending departure from Osnabrück for a week-long trip to the central part of Germany. This first day saw us heading to see friends in Braunschweig (or Brunswick, if you want it to be anglicized), just north of the Harz mountain range. We took a bus to the Osnabrück train station, a classically slow regional train that took about 2 1/2 hours to get us to Braunschweig’s main station, and then another bus to the friends we were visiting, Kirsten and Andrea. Kirsten is an old friend from my dorm days in Hamburg (so 1986-1988) and although we’ve been trading Christmas letters for decades, we decided that we must have last seen each other in 1991 or at the very latest in 1993. So it’s been a while, and I had never met Kirsten’s wife Andrea.
We arrived at their home at the outskirts of Braunschweig around 2:30 and were treated to a fabulous meal from the grill on the covered patio of their house, looking out at their lovely garden with fruit trees and lots of birds flitting about. We chatted for a good long time, later took a nice walk through the nearby fields and woodsy areas (we saw a stork’s nest, and heard a cuckoo, so that was fabulous), and then talked late into the evening over another lovely meal of bread, cheese and cold cuts–about everything from memories of our student days to our various career paths (both Kirsten and Andrea are recently retired), from family stories and family trees to vacation destinations here and in the US, and about the all-important question of how Mark and I met, and how Kirsten and Andrea met. (Always fun to trade old new-to-others stories!)
Now we are all talked out and we are going to bed!