Germany was amazing and beautiful and as soon as I get back to my room in the States I am grabbing my old Treffpunkt Deutsch and teaching myself some grammar.  I have an interest in Germany dating from… probably my junior year of high school, when I took a college class on the Faust myth.  There is so much interesting German philosophy (I have a theory about this) and culture and history, and the country itself is also very beautiful and I love the way the language sounds.

  I don’t know if it’s fair to paint all Germany with the Romantic, thinker brush, but I definitely met some intellectuals during my stay, and got some book recommendations out of it.  A friend of the guy we were staying with in Frankfurt is proposing a Theology PhD about an MIT business theory and the concept of eschatology. (His English was good but we would have both had to be geniuses in order to communicate all the details.  I’m going to look for the MIT book.)  Frankfurt also had an extensive Christmas market: rows and rows of stalls, two carousels, a huge tree.  A chorus performed carols, some in English, some in German, and also Adeste Fideles in Latin. It was nice to hear Christmas music sung by people who loved it, in a group, not on the radio with wild riffs between fast-talking DJ spiels.

Then it was two days in Heidelberg, renowned for its beauty (it was spared heavy bombing during the war and most of the old buildings are intact).  We hung out with some great people (who had some beautiful apartments.  Europe is excellent at space efficiency.) and climbed up to the castle, wandered the city. I walked alone through the forest on a foggy morning. We ate homecooked meals (thank you Julia!) and went to a private piano concert in a pianist’s apartment, had schnapps and beers and danced in a bar.

I didn’t take too many pictures.  I felt more like being where I was, and just as I feel less and less inclined to visit the must-see locations unless I personally feel that I really want to see them; I don’t feel like I need pictures to document where I’ve been.  That’s nice, but it’s not what I want to use photography for.  However, I do have a few digital shots, and I’ll post whatever came out well.  I’m getting more and more excited to develop my film, which, for better or worse, feels more legitimate and real to me.