Back for a Visit...

This past week has been a good week because I did something very exciting - I booked my big vacation for this year! I am heading back to Germany for 13 days in May/June and can hardly wait; 13 days of much-needed time not only away from work but out of the country as well.

Part of the reason for the trip back to Germany is purely nostalgic - I need to get my "fix" and see my old stomping grounds again. I need to walk the streets of Tübingen again, eat a Döner at the marketplace again, drink beer in the beer gardens again, speak German for two straight weeks again, see old friends again, ride the train through the countryside again. I think of Germany almost every day and I miss it more than I can describe. I honestly do regret not exploring other avenues of getting myself back there before I came back to Seattle, even though at the time I didn't want to go back so badly.

The other reason for the trip is related to the first but on a deeper level: to reconnect with my second home. It seems silly to many people in my life (including myself, admittedly) that I refer to Germany as my "second home" but in many ways it is and will always be as close to my definition of home as my home country is. It has been almost two years since I left Germany in August of 2006, and I want to begin exploring the possibility of returning indefinitely.

I won't be able to even realistically consider acting on that prospect for at least another 9 months - and even then it would be somewhat premature - but nonetheless I think it's a good idea to at least let it start simmering in the back of my mind, to keep Germany on the radar. My greatest fear in coming back to Seattle after graduation and starting a job here was that I would somehow "forget" Germany or lose touch with it - that I would wake up one morning and find myself with a slew of obligations preventing me from taking off for the horizon again. And so this trip is, in that sense, a metaphorical climb to the top of the forest canopy to verify that the horizon is, indeed, still there.

In any case, if you are over in Germany right now, I want to come and visit you and/or have you join me on my trip! Facebook me!