Darmstadt Trip

I decided early last week to spend the weekend in Darmstadt and visit Nia, Gio, Malte and anyone else that was still in town. I departed Torino Thursday night for the Ryanair airport outside of Milan. I definitely did not miss the long travel days and sleeping at airports that Ryanair flights generally require. I had some time in Milan to spend with Tal’s friend Keren. She was nice enough to put host me for two hours before heading to the airport.

Landing at the Hahn airport brought back memories instantly. For all the times that I have flown into Hahn I don’t think the sun has ever been shining when we land. It is always foggy, raining, or snowing. The two hour bus ride to Frankfurt was uneventful, but nice to drive through the German countryside as always.

Nia and I meet for lunch near her work, European Central Bank. It was great seeing her after a year and a half. The age difference seems temporarily even larger than before with her being in the work world now. I’m still a student and do things at my leisure while she has responsibilities and a disposable income. After lunch I went back to her place in Darmstadt to clean up and sleep after 18 hours of traveling.

Around 7pm Nia called saying her, Martin and some of their friends were at the Ratskeller having dinner if I wanted to join. They couldn’t have picked a better place in my opinion. I promptly jumped out of bed, got dressed and headed over. I think the Ratskeller is my all time favorite brewery and restaurant anywhere. Neither are the best, but the beer comes as close as one truly needs; combined with a great atmosphere and building everything seems perfect.

From Ratskeller I headed to Karlshof. Getting off the bus I felt that anticipation of being at one of several homes again. Walking down the forested path towards the buildings I felt like a kid anticipating an amusement park or the ice cream man. I don’t know how to describe it. I used to feel the same way after coming back from a week or two of traveling while living there. My year there represents perhaps the best year of my life ever with countless good memories that came flooding back as I walked to my apartment.

Malte, as seemingly always, was still in my old apartment. To many of the others on the floor Malte was there before, is there now, and will perhaps always be there. Amazingly he is not the only one like I thought. Tina and Julius are still living in their apartment next door after moving out and moving back in. Anna is on the other side still as well after a year in Spain. My old apartment has gone through quite a change since I was there. Gozka painted the apartment yellow and managed to find a new couch for the apartment., which combined with some rearranging makes the place look really nice now.

Saturday was a doubly good day. I took advantage of the afternoon to go shopping at the stores that I knew and managed to buy jeans that fit and look good along with a cheap suite for going out in Italy. In the evening Martin and I, Nia was sick, went to Frankfurt to meet their friends Johann, Andy and Jessica. We went and saw Borat, a movie that I would not recommend to anyone, and then for some beers. The beers were definitely the better part of the evening. Andy ended up heading home leaving just the four of us, and Johann was sick and thus not particularly in the mood for speaking English or German, he’s Swedish, so I ended up talking to Jessica for the two hours at the pub. I really had a good time getting to know her, we had a wonderful conversation. It is little surprise that I would get along so well with a friend of Nia’s.

This is long, and I’m out of time for the night. I’ll post more later.