The flight home is good. A large sticker is emblazoned on the tail fin: “We also brake for idiots”. In the skies above Berlin, the pilot flies holding patterns for almost an hour. Bush’s Airforce One has priority. I don’t arrive in Nuremberg until late in the evening. My emails have got stuck, my parents don’t know I’ve arrived.
I’m lying in bed between 400 printed pages for my tax return. I immediately feel German again. Enjoy fast, stable WiFi. Work. Eat pretzels, bread cake, red fruit jelly, beer-battered ham sandwiches and schnitzel. Everything looks the same as it did a year ago. Nothing has changed. “Home” is like a normal stop on the journey. I’ve been here before, I remember. But the connection is missing.
Regensburg, Bismarckplatz. The sun is shining, the fountain is splashing. At home? I float through the alleyways of my old home in an invisible, relatively soundproof bubble. Order a cappuccino. The waiter still knows my name. I’ve forgotten his. It’s strangely quiet. I register myself and my car back in Regensburg. Am I a Regensburg resident again now?
In the evening, Germany loses to Croatia in the European Championships. I meet old friends in the film theatre. Everything is normal and Germany is strange. I bog down for far too long for my untrained night fitness. In the end, I pay the full price for everyone. I go home to Tom in the rain.
I spend the next few days working in front of the telly. My two favourite zombies, Marianne and Michael, are still walking undead on their beloved strings through the Musikantenstadel. Germany still likes it – and it’s very strange.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.