I wake up in my one room apartment with the sun drenching my face, prying my eyelids open. Yesterday was a whirlwind of miles in cars and planes, across timezones and an ocean.
My supervisor, Dr. Heckmann, came by in the evening to make sure that I had arrived and was settled. We went for a bit of a walk, and found a payphone for me to call my family and reassure myself with their voices. I went to sleep feeling more comfortable with the unknown...now that it was a little more known. And Nutella. They bought me some food for the weekend, giving me my first experience with the rich, creamy, chocolatey, smooth Haselnuss perfection that is Nutella. In fact, supper on jam and Nutella sandwiches was not uncommon...
The morning was warm, bright and sunshiny. I leave the apartment a few minutes after 9, to do some of the exploring I had been too tired for the night before. I walk along a stream, over a bridge, along a meadow bursting with yellow wildflowers and past some barns. The path goes over the road into town and is paved with cobblestones, trimmed with cement. The Selz burbles along joyfully before breaking from the path that opens into green, scrubby fields mottled with fluffy, sheepy shapes. The picturesque path will later accompany me on many a run during warm summer nights to Groß-Winternheim and back.
As I walk back into town, St. Remigius' bell tower rings loud and bold, imploring, beseeching and celebrating with parishioners arriving for Pfingsten Mass. The bright, cheery mood fills me too, as I begin to decompress from the terror of exams and the immediacy and rush of a good friend's wedding just days before. There is no rush here. We are on holiday, and I am becoming part of this quiet town, if only for the summer. I glory in my status as local-wannabe.
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