Arrived in Frankfurt after an uneventful flight from Jo’burg. I like uneventful flights. The flight wasn’t full, so I shared a row of 4 seats with a fellow from Italy who lives in Boston and Cape Cod. He works for a group called Woodhole that is a think tank regarding climate change. He was coming back from a conference in Durban, South Africa, on his way home to Boston then flying to Dubai a few days later. That particular flight plan didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but maybe he needed more clean socks or something. Interesting fellow, very dedicated, but what a travel schedule. And always in Economy. He is moving to San Francisco area in February to work for one year at Stanford so we exchanged emails in case he wants some names and contacts in the Bay Area. Although I think with his work schedule he may never even see the Bay Area. Maybe I can turn him over to my mother and her friends and they can set him straight.
My first impression of Germany: cold, with no bugs. Okay, I later did see a measly sized spider and on my visit to my German parent’s a random flying thing was actually in the house. It is winter here. No wall spiders and no mosquitos so far, thank you very much.
My first day was spent first with my brother Hartmut’s wife, Valeria, and then alone with a nice down comforter in a bed for a three hour nap. When I awoke the kids were home from school – a 4 year old and a 6 year old – both boys, and the noise began. For the first hour or so they pretty much ignored me. Then suddenly at some point they were crawling all over me, perhaps finally recognizing me from seeing me last November in Sacramento or because they had watched me carefully during the time I sat there and realized I wasn’t going away nor was I doing to destroy them or impede their frantic, crazy world.
A friend of theirs from Brazil who now lives in Miami showed up – he was there for a conference for the week but couldn’t get a hotel room for this one night – so he was going to bunk in with the kids. Still later another friend from Brazil arrived, also there for the same conference, but he had a hotel room and would be leaving later. We all sat around, them speaking Portuguese to one another, and German to me. I pulled out the bottle of Amarula I brought from South Africa - a nice dessert drink like Baileys but without the whiskey flavor. We listened to some jazz, or tried to with all the conversations going including one to Brazil via Skype and the shrieks of the kids from time to time. Hartmut and I did a small bit of catching up, but he was exhausted. They had just gotten back the day before from Brazil where they had taken a vacation, and he had had to go directly back to work the next day, so he was pretty shot.
We decided that I would head to see my German parents by train the next day, so that I had the weekend free to be with them in Wiesbaden. Depending on the weather Saturday, we will go to the Christmas Market in Frankfurt, the biggest in the country apparently. I think it supposed to snow by then, and with young kids everything you do is done with painstaking deliberation. But if they can’t go, I will since freezing in snow while drinking mulled wine (with a shot of amaretto it is surprisingly good) is on my list of things to do while here.
The train ride to Goettingen, where my parents live in an “old folk’s home” took about 2 hours. I decided to walk a bit in the old town section of the city before heading to their house, since I arrived around noon and they were going to be at lunch and then taking their after lunch naps. I wandered the streets, soaking in the “German-ness” of it all. It was cold but not raining so I figured now was the time to walk about. I ended up shopping primarily for Christmas tree ornaments to take back to Botswana as small gifts I could give my co-workers, and clothing for my youngest Batswana niece and now two nephews, as one of my sisters had a baby a week or two ago. I really ought to make myself a list of who I am buying stuff for so I don’t go nuts in the wrong direction and end up with things only I want. Well, that wouldn’t be so bad either except everything here is expensive.
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