The Big Two Four

Last week was my 24th birthday and the third I have spent in Germany.

Adam flew to Germany and I went to meet him at the train station. He said he was arriving at 2.15 so I arrived in plenty of time to reapply lipstick and to practice a suitably alluring greeting.

Not wanting to be spotted before I’d achieved the desired level of poise I snuck by the main entrance and took the left stairs down to the lower level of the station. I checked the timetable to see which platform his train would arrive at and thus which direction he would be coming from. I walked along to the right and came up the escalator at the opposite side of the station. I headed back out towards the main entrance and saw Adam standing outside, holding what looked like a huge cushion.

He was in fact holding flowers that he had purchased a few minutes earlier and that, to his dismay, the florist had completely sealed in a paper bag such that none were visible. He said he’d arrived fifteen minutes ago and snuck across the entrance and down the right-hand stairs, bought the flowers, and come up the left stairs. I smiled to myself.

A pile of pressies, which contained nine books, a handbag, a cardigan, a purse, a box of chocolates, make-up, and an invitation to pampering in a hotel.

First edition! And it's signed! This calls for a "WHOOP!"

Mum bought me a signed first edition of Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog, which occupies the number one slot in my Top 5 (of which, until recently, there were only three, the logic of which makes perfect sense to me but sent every man I know into a fit).

Other books in my Top 5 are Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 and works by Douglas Adams, both of which appeared in the birthday books. Catch 22 is auf Deutsch, a gift from Zoran and Janine. I think it fitting that I read at least one book in German whilst I live here. It will be slow going, with some heavy dictionary intervention, but I will take it a bit at a time. I have so far read (and successfully understand) the first line.

Adam absolutely outdid himself on the present front with, happily, not a practical joke in sight. Perhaps it was last year’s leftover guilt or last week’s severe warning that prevented a similar event but later that day I found myself lying by the pool of a five-star hotel in the nearby spa town of Bad Durkheim (nicer than it sounds). The weather was glorious – hot, sunny, and perfect for thinking how good life is when you're lying next to your boyfriend on a beach towel on a Wednesday afternoon.

We had dinner in this wine-barrel-shaped restaurant, which served delicious and pleasingly large usual-German-type food.

Usual German-type food

The following morning we went to the thermal baths; we changed into swimwear and walked down towards the pool, where we were confronted by a hundred old people being led in a rather lacklustre aqua aerobics session by an even older person. Not ideal for a saucy birthday weekend away but nevertheless Adam and I managed to unwind in the jacuzzi, where the density of pensioners was somewhat lower, though unfortunately not the preferred zero.

In summary it was a fabulous birthday that I managed to extend over a period of about a week. I'm already looking forward to the next one although if it turns out to be German Birthday 4 I will have to have a serious rethink!