Below are my impressions of Germany when I traveled there during December of 2004 for a week. The links comprise my day-to-day adventures with my friend, Taramin, during the week. Enjoy the pictures,
Where was I?
I was twenty-five years old and in Arizona for New Years. I was staying with my friends Sean and Cari, and we went to Brian's to party down for 2000. I got really hammered, and I don't remember much of that night- I still drank then. My father was living in his car in the alley behind the bar. I just finished three plus years of Community College, drove a sports car, worked at Sipex as a machine operator working on semi-conductors. I was renting a room out of my Aunt Jean and Uncle Bill's house, and my mom had just bought a house up in Santa Cruz moving away from San Jose. I had just applied to UC Berkeley, I wasn't really sure what I wanted, and where I was going or what was out there for me. I just wrote stories on my time off. The main reason I continued at Community College working on my English is to improve my skills at writing, so that I might one day write a book. One of the big reasons I even attempted to apply to UC Berkeley had to do with improving my writing. My world was limited to the south-western coast of the United States.
Five years later...
I am sitting in Frankfurt Airport speaking to a friend, Taramin, who I didn't even know five years ago, talking about where I was physically and mentally five years ago. Life is freaken amazing! I am now thirty years old, my father has since passed away, my Aunt and Uncle have moved to Nevada, and my mom just moved out of that Santa Cruz house and into another outside of Stockton. I quit my job, and six months later the company shipped my department to Asia. I sold my sports car, and acquired a BA in English from the University of California at Berkeley. I have since stopped drinking, my friend's Sean and Cari have married and now have two little boys, and I am in England going to school for my Masters in Medieval English Literature and traveling a world I never thought I would ever have access too. I repeat- Life is freaken amazing!
This of course leads me to think- where will I be in five years? This is really a lame question when you consider the above. How can I predict? A couple things remain the same though, I still don't know what I want for myself out of life, and I still want to write a book.
As my British Air flight took off, climbing into the low hanging clouds, the forests of Germany fading from my view, I opened my lips and mouthed a good-bye to the land of some of my distant ancestors. The last seven days really seemed like a weird kind of dream experience- when we flew in we descended into the low clouds that blanketed the stout hills of Germany, and as I departed the plane broke though those same clouds. It was a surreal experience.
Below are the links for my travels in Germany. Over the next week, I will give a day by day account of my activities (with pictures) of the seven days I spent in Germany. Check back to this page to get the new updates throughout the week.
Note: I have had to erase some of my pictures from prior trips in order to makes space for my Germany trip. From Durham Link onward all the pictures are still there- if you want to see them again- I suggest you do so before my next adventure because I will need to continue to get rid of the old to make room for the new.