Catch up

I’ve neglected this blog for the past month or so, and my excuse is simply that I’ve been surrounded by people. My hermit-like routine has been shaken up of late with several rounds of visitors and a birthday trip to Seattle. As soon as the socialising stopped I was thrown into a stupidly busy period at work. I haven’t been left much time for quiet reflection and writing.

Andrew Kao and Baz came to stay with me at the beginning of July as part of their ridiculously epic five-week, four-continent world trip. Kao is my closest friend from my university days in Australia, and Baz is Andrew’s high school buddy. If I’ve calculated correctly, Kao and Baz are the only people apart from my parents who’ve come to visit me both in Seattle and Munich. We had lots of fun watching Germany’s semi final against Spain (result was depressing, company was fun), consuming copious amounts of Bavarian food and beer (well, I had a salad – damn Asians and their metabolisms that can handle four dishes between two people), and catching up after way, way too long (discussing who of our friends is getting married next – it seems that’s the thing to do these days).

My bi-monthly trip to Seattle was wonderful. What did I do there for a week? Not much. Worked from home, cooked, met friends, hammered my quads running up Capitol Hill, ate Mexican food, drank Unibroue (hallelujah!) -- normal things. There’s no doubt that Seattle now feels like home. As much as I originally strove not to, I have clearly put down emotional roots here. And as much as I love my solitary life in Germany – travelling, writing, running - I’m really looking forward to going home and having my friends back.

And, well. It’s always good to go back to a place where you can buy coriander in the supermarket without having to trek to an “ethnic store”. Munich grocery stores can be depressingly meat ‘'n’ potatoes at times.

Two days after I got back from Seattle, my mum arrived in Munich. I’ve been living oceans away from my parents for four and a half years now, so clearly any period of time I get to spend with them is wonderful and special. One of the best things about growing up is that you start to see your parents as people in their own right, and not just as people whose life’s purpose is to keep your shit together. (Let’s face it, that’s how we all saw our parents when we were kids.) It’s like getting to know them all over again.

Since my parents already spent a decent amount of time in Munich last Christmas, my mum and I spent her two weekends here out of town. The first weekend we took the overnight train to Slovenia – probably the most western European-feeling place I’ve been to in eastern Europe so far. Ljubljana is so tiny and laid-back that it’s hard to believe it’s the capital city of a country. It’s often referred to as mini-Prague, although all the narrow little row houses squeezed tight along the banks of the Ljubljanica river reminded me a lot of Amsterdam. We didn’t have the best weather for our day in Ljubljana, but we did manage to eat the best peaches in the universe at the cathedral fruit market. God bless Mediterranean soil.

The weather gods were much kinder to us the next day for our trip to Lake Bled, a shimmering sapphire set into the chain of the Julian Alps. We took advantage of the sunshine and did a lot of walking – into the cool, rocky peace of Vintgar Gorge, through little country towns that reminded me of Bavaria (you can definitely tell Slovenia used to be part of Austria), and to Bled Castle, dramatically perched on the edge of a sheer cliff overlooking the lake. We also took a boat ride to the little island in the middle of the lake, in a gondola propelled by a cheerful man with giant biceps and an even bigger pivo belly. There we sat, Amma and I, on the edge of the Blend Island dock, dangling our feet into the cool water, looking at the snow-capped peaks in the distance, shooting the breeze and wishing that someone would invent teleportation already so we could do this kind of stuff together more often.

The following weekend we rented a little car to drive a small section of the Romantische Strasse - the Romantic Road - one of the most celebrated road trip routes in southern Germany. We were excited to drive through beautiful countryside, visit quaint little fairy-tale villages and and generally pretend we’d fallen inside a Grimm Brothers’ story. First, though, we had to get the hell out of Munich. Now, I don’t drive in Munich very often, and all we had were some slightly cryptic Google Maps instructions to get us onto the right autobahn. To add to the confusion, my mum is both short-sighted and long-sighted and can’t look at the map and the street without changing glasses. A comedy of errors inevitably ensued, in which the only thing that kept us sane was the sugar rush from a shared packet of lemon fresh fizzy Coke gummies.

Things got fun fast once we were out of Munich’s orbit, though. It seemed like each poky little mediaeval village we visited was cuter than the last one. The best one was Rothenburg ob der Tauber, where we ended up spending the night. The ramparts of the town walls are so well-preserved that you can walk almost the whole perimeter of the city, inspecting it from above like a soldier.

Rothenburg is one of the few beautiful places I’ve been that is filled with tourists, and yet never feels crowded. There are just so many nooks and alleyways to explore, little pockets of solitude to make you feel like you have the place to yourself. Oh, and did I mention it’s as cute as a button?

To cap off our trip, my mum and I did something very us. We woke up at 4am, went to the very edge of town and watched the sun rise over the fields. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen – it was like the sky was on fire. And I had my wonderful Amma – the person who introduced me as a kid to the glories of dragging yourself out of bed for sunrises – to share it with. What could be better?