"Bread and cheese?" she offers.
"What else would it be?" I reply, haha.
Something strikes me about this breakfast. Bread. Cheese.
If I were home I'd have a choice of five cereals, four tv dinners, and chips, peanuts, and goldfish crackers to satisfy my 'crunch' to compliment my meal. I'm so spoiled. But not spoiled...wanting to fill a spectrum of taste to saturation.
I'm so complex. So compulsive.
"You eat this every day?" I ask her.
"Every day."
I would get tired of it after a few days, haha.
Julia's life is simple. She works part-time a few days a week and the rest of the week she has free.
I look at the plants in the kitchen and her painting.
The simplicity of life surrounds me, envelops me. It is refreshing.
"Work is done," is her philosophy. "Everything's already done."
That idea counters my "Finish Eveything" attitude. A war against compulsion? It's nice to see this possibility of life, even if it might be incompatible with my personality.
At home the fast-paced "figure everything out in your life now or it's too late" attitude dominates. It even tries to follows me to Europe.
But here, seeing a piece of Julia's life makes me see me more clearly.
I begin to separate the parts of me that I like and don't like. But what do you do when they're on both sides of the spectrum?
(I like the human condition so much that I should write stories...but that's for another day).
We have a plan for today.
"So are you ready for canoeing?" she asks.
"Always am!" I respond.
We stroll through a park toward the Hamburg waters. We come across a small boat place. Friendly fellow runs it. His cheery belly protrudes out, and his smile welcomes even a stranger from America.
Looking at the sky, gray clouds loom over us.
"Should we wait fifteen minutes in case it rains?" we ponder.
Julia hands over the money, half mine and half hers. "We're adventurous," she declares.
"There are countless bridges to take shelter under," he says.
Sweet. It's like Amsterdam, but from the water! Haha like every city where I regret not doing something, I get a chance in the next city. I like an opportunistic life, I wish it felt that way back home..
Friendly guy enters mother mode.
"Do you need to use the restroom?"
Haha two or three hours on the water.. Thanks, we're good.
Canoe.
I sit in front, Julia in the back. I power, she steers. We both row.
She looks at her map. "There's a nice lake here, oh and several small waterways there." We ponder the possibilities. "Let's turn links," which is left in German.
I row and row and row and our vessel gradually makes a turn as we come dangerously close to the rocky shore.
"No wait!" she exclaims like a dork, " turning the map around, "turn recht!"
I flip my oar/paddle/whatever to the other side and swivel our boat to the starboard. Ship language is universal, right? The boat torques with the force of a space shuttle.
I hear a German shriek.
"What?" I ask.
She laughs. "I dropped the map."
I scan the waters behind us. No sign of floating directions.
"It's okay, I got it all up here." she points to her head.
"Great," I say sarcastically. But I'm laughing. The simple life, huh? Let's try it your way.
We venture forth into Hamburg's small waterways. They greet us with the giddiness of a labyrinth.
Gray clouds discourage most people, so we're the only ones on the water. It's peaceful. The sounds of oar strokes fill the idle air, we pass waterside houses with places for a boat to dock, their yards with stone paths and lush grass spark my imagination of a wonderful life.
We find a lake and venture into the center of it. The boat sits and drifts in the current. Lunchtime.
Julia pulls out a fruit-filled crepe she bought at the bakery. I pull out my mini croissant, feeling that I should have bought more. Cheap Paul persists, haha. I take mini bites so I can 'have' my croissant and eat it too, haha.
I realize I'm sitting facing forward, not toward Julia so it feels awkward. We can't really talk like this.
"Hold on," I say.
I stand up and the boat rocks.
"Careful," she laughs. "Don't kill us."
Dorks are known to do stupid things.
But whatever, I sit and now we can talk, haha.
The boat drifts to the statues, which have inscriptions. She translates them.
We're done with food and we row, row, row our boat gently down the Hamburg waterway.
We pass a dock with little boats. The building just up the walk says, "Ice Cream."
I ponder how often I'll be in Hamburg on a boat with a dorky German who lost our map, and my mind screams, "Let's get ice cream." Did I say that out loud?
"Alright! You park the boat, I'll get it," she commands.
"Chocolate, bitte," I say, haha.
I hold the boat steady by grabbing the dock ask she disembarks. I consider shaking the boat to make her fall, but then she might not get me ice cream haha.
I'm sitting there on the canoe and all is right with the world. But what if the NASDAQ stocks fall, Paul?
Julia yells from her position, "With or without peanuts?"
"With!" I yell back. Usually I take three minutes with that decision.
She walks back with two cones and I take mine.
"Danka," I say.
She gets in and I push out boat away with my oar. We drift and the ice cream flavor magnifies my feeling of peace. That's before the sugar high, haha.
Suddenly our boat drifts toward the docked kayaks. Frantically I reach for my oar and one-handedly row to try and turn. I see the kayaks are so close we can touch them. The current is strong.
Our boat collides gingerly.
Screech! Bump.
How dorky.
I hand Julia my ice cream and two-handedly paddle back to the dock.
Julia embeds her oar in one of the wooden plank cracks to anchor us, after almost dropping her ice cream, so we're even in the dork score today, haha.
We finish our 'creme and paddle off back home. We pass a young boy doing body surfing.
Hello, Hamburgeon.
As we return to the boat place I know this is one of my top five memories of this trip.
That night Julia has guests over for a practice 'jam' session. She's gonna play with two flutists in an outdoor music festival.
I lay there in my 'bedroom' aka music room haha and observe. German lyrics. I close my eyes. The evening passes in peace.
As the final lyrics propagate, I get ready for tomorrow. A new day. A new hostel. New adventures.
And I come to the conclusion that
couchsurfing in Germany ain't bad. A free place to stay for a night...but it's the personal stories and perspectives make it worth it.
I met a dork in Hamburg. That's an adventure, haha.
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