Reunited with J...

...and it feels so good.

Friday night, we flew into Germany, arriving in Düsseldorf just before 11 p.m. Once through the gate, I called Johannes, who was waiting for us close by, and as soon as the words "Wo bist du?" were out of my mouth, he responded in a stream of (mostly) incomprehensible German. Yes I can speak German. No I can't speak German super well. But once he switched back to English, we quickly located one another from across the terminal and made our way toward one another.

It was fantastic to see him; Johannes is one of those people who feels like home, even considering the fact that he lives 5000 miles away from me. We made our way to the train station and bought a ticket for Elia (but not one for me, because Johannes gets to ride the train for free with himself and someone else sometimes - consider it a plus one of the DB system). We waited for maybe 10 minutes and our train pulled up, so we got on with all our luggage and settled in.

Not much later, an employee looking like (what Elia described as) an American Gladiator, came through and when Johannes presented his ticket, she immediately began arguing with him in German. We couldn't understand the specifics of the conversation, but the meaning around the words were pretty clear. Apparently, he wasn't allowed to use his card at that certain time and at that certain stop for (insert bullshit reason here). So when offered to buy a ticket on the spot, she declined, and kicked us off.

Yes, that's right, we had to get off at the next station. So we did, and bought a new ticket, and proceeded to wait for far too long in the freezing cold until the next train arrived. Brilliant, right? Elia was cranky and cold, and I just thought it was kind of amusing, that of course as soon as we arrive in Germany after overcoming so much just to get there, we were faced with that kind of annoyance.

Finally our train came, and in no time at all, we were in Düsseldorf at Johannes' apartment. Elia was exhausted so she went to bed, and Johannes and I camped out in the kitchen with candles, antipasti, Beck's and my laptop, while we went over the pictures of our trip up to that point and basically caught up on life. We ended up staying awake until nearly 4 a.m., when we both decided sleep would be best. But not before he demonstrated his skill at opening beer bottles with a lighter (a skill which is far superior and much more perfected than mine).

From europe