I arrived home from Germany in the wee hours of Monday and continue to bubble with complete elation over my visit. Traveling to all places new is a very surreal experience for this small town girl from Mississippi and I find it increasingly difficult to not smile like a complete 'wally' in the airports before departure to my European destinations. I smile infectiously because I never in a million years thought my life would consist of seeing Europe for myself rather than in glossy over-sized (and over priced) hardbacks. I remember as a teenager sipping flavored coffee at the local bookstore chain, tracing photo outlines of the Eiffel tower longing for a sense of freedom from cotton fields and my normality. I was complacent and bored, aware of awaiting adventures.
Germany is a fantastic place. Unfortunately, words fail me in description of such a treasure. I have added a few items to my 'favorite things' - one being Schnitzel. Despite the semi-vegetarian lifestyle I have led for nearly 10 years now, I have reintroduced pork into my diet. What a better way to do so with German Schnitzel. It is divine.
The quaintness of German villages is straight from storybooks and tales in dreams. Gingerbread houses placed neatly in green hills, children's toys handmade from wood, stone laid walkways, cuckoo clocks and bowing flowers perched in flower boxes of every window. The streets eluded sheer magic as my feet followed winding cobble meeting those with salutations of 'Guten tag'. I refrain from newly German words and stifled the gestures of tipping a hat to them. Something within me wanted my legs to skip freely, shouting 'hallo! guten tag!' to the top of my lungs, bowing to the locals and tipping my hat. I suppose the fresh air and space went to my head a little. If I were a kitten, I would purr.
And then there is the aspect of being reunited with an old friend. While I possessed complete adoration in touring and being apart of her new life I could not help but remember our days as college students and reminiscing days where an adventure to us was a picture show at the local drive-in. To think how far we've come (literally) of uprooting and facing newness in places so unfamiliar yet, now our homes. I marveled at her life as a military wife, the braveness she musters and felt so proud of what she had become. Distance, years and even silence hasn't dampened our friendship in the slightest and to me that is what having a true friend is all about. My favorite recent memory with her was touring the oldest city in Germany called Trier with an doubled scoop Italian ice cream in hand and experiencing the sites of something new for us two southern belles. As ice cream trickled down the cone and over my fingers, I murmured the words, 'I want this moment to last' while she replied, 'just take it all in.' I did just that.
Life's journeys can truly be marvelous if you dare to allow life to take you along.





























