Hamburg and Lübeck

This past Sunday, at 15:27 Deutsche Bahn time, I arrived in Hamburg’s central train station on my way to revisit Joni’s family, who had so graciously hosted me in 2008 as part of GAPP(German American Partnership Program, Joni visited me for 4 weeks in the US, I visited him for 3 weeks in Germany). About an hour later, Joni’s father met me at Poppenbüttel train station and drove me back to their home, where I was also happy to see Joni’s mother again. Almost nothing had changed in the past four years. Sure, the parents and Joni’s younger siblings (who I would meet later at midnight when they arrived back from a trip to Taize) had gotten older and some little things were different around the house. But for the most part, I was in the same comfortable atmosphere that I remember from high school, only this time, we spoke auf Deutsch! It was really a special experience because although I got to know the family the last time by speaking in English, the most intricate parts of the family members’ personalities, or I think really anyone’s personalities, only comes out in their native tongue. At the same time, the family seemed almost honored in a way that I had continued to study German and all of this just made for a really good two days in Hamburg. Sleeping in, attending a talk given by the mother about life in former East Germany, playing Mario Cart- things don’t get much better than that! Vielen Dank Joni’s Familie!

On Tuesday afternoon, I took a small detour on my way back to Berlin to get coffee with a Midd friend named Chris, who is currently doing a Fullbright project in Lübeck. He gave me a tour of the quaint little city and we caught up on things since we had last seen each other in Middlebury. Last spring, Chris gave me a lot of really valuable advice before I embarked on my semester in Mainz, since he spent a year there during his undergraduate years, so part of the reason I wanted to visit was to let him know that everything had turned out well with the Wintersemester. More importantly though, he is just a great guy and I was sad to have to say goodbye to him to make my journey back to Berlin. Danke für einen wunderbaren Nachmittag Chris!

So, now I just have 4 days left in Berlin, INCLUDING TODAY! I’m off to the Jewish Museum now. Danke furs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!

PS- This is really funny! (Thanks for sharing this on FB Talel)

Go to Google Translate; Copy this text:

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Pick German as the 'from' language; Press the 'Listen'-button