Interlude: What's The Point?

On Thursday evening, Christoph, Gillian, and I met up with my friends Anna and Juliane in Hamburg, two others I met while travelling in Argentina. Anna is doing her masters in nearby Bremen and Juliane has moved to Hamburg to work. They’re both wonderful people who I really enjoyed hanging out with in Cordoba, so it seemed like a bit of a tease to only spend a few hours with them after having not seen them for a year and a half, and knowing I won’t be able to see them for at least another year.

So I wondered, “What’s the point? Am I trying too hard, making something out of nothing?” When Anna and I finally met up we smiled, hugged, and immediately began asking about what we’ve been up to. The same happened when we met up with Juliane. And then there was a moment, while we were waiting in this little restaurant for kumplir (a giant baked potato with cheese and stuff in it), it started to make sense to me.

Standing there, chatting in the restaurant, talking about our interests and latest projects, it was like I had nonchalantly stepped into a wormhole, destination Cordoba, Argentina November 2008. This was about reconnecting with people who played important roles in a very special period in my life. Anna and Juliane had hung out with me at the Spanish school, we had gone out for drinks together, and we had an awesome barbeque together (with others) at Anna’s hostel. I remember one day Anna and I discussed whether or not Samuel L. Jackson had been in any good movies besides Pulp Fiction (I argued he had). I remember Juliane, lover of tango, gave me a brief tango lesson in the school common area. Just like with my friends in Amsterdam, I was reconnecting with people with whom I had shared special memories and inside jokes.

The same with this destination - Christoph was a good friend to both Gillian and me this past year and same with Gillian in my experience at the EFC; they were both “main characters” in my “plot” if you will. Vicky, in Belgium, was also a key player in the enjoyment of my year at the EFC. In the car ride from Berlin to Hamburg, Christoph played a very fitting song called “5 Years Time” by Noah and the Whales. Cuz maybe I’ll still be doing this in five years time, jumping from person to person, memory to memory, while still creating new ones. And y’know...

...it’ll probably be a lot of fun, connecting new adventures with my old ones.