We just returned from a trip to visit friends Esther and Reinhardt at their home in Eckernförde on the Baltic Sea. Late last night, after the kids were in bed and the bags were unpacked, Jost said, "It's strange, but when we come back to this apartment, it actually feels like home."
It's true: this is also home now, one week short of mid-way through our year here. Perhaps we realize it more after traveling so much during this three-week Christmas break—staying with friends in Munich and the Ostsee and in hotels in the Black Forest and Bavaria. Maybe "home" comes from knowing that the floorboards creak in the hallway and either not noticing or intuitively remembering the path of least creakiness. Or from sensing just where the shower faucet will shift from scalding hot to tepid. Or from sinking down onto a familiar mattress and sleeping through the night with the comforting sounds of traffic five stories below. Time and experience have made them familiar, dependable . . . homey.
The big city of Berlin itself doesn't welcome us back, but we're glad to return. The sun is shining brightly, there's a thin sheen of ice over the Lietzensee, and we haven't been rained on in weeks. School began again today, and the kids returned with mixed feelings—eager to see friends, but loath to pick up the fountain pens and dive into textbooks—again, normal!
These are the threads that make up daily life at . . . home.
The big black dots on this map of Germany
represent the different corners of the country
we've explored so far.
(Click on the map to enlarge it if you'd like.)
