"You're speaking to me in German "

You arrive in a famous, beautiful German town at 6:30A.M., and you think "this will be the first town I watch as it wakes. I will observe the sun climbing the hills on to the backs of buildings as it discards its golden cape to massage one of its older friends, Heidelberg, into fresh spring life. I will smell spring flowers and touch dusted stones." You set off with Spring's spring under your heel, and you explore the still virgin city as the sole dedicated tourist willing to scrap sleep for lessons in culture in beauty as yet unknown on this day in late March. OR: you sit in MacDonalds for a few hours and write in your journal and repeatedly turn away the either extremely persistent homeless (?) or drugged out and forgetful man asking for your money. Hey, I made the effort for the sunrise romantics, but then I thought, "This is stupid. I'm tired and I want some Bacon Egg McMuffin and environmental guilt to boot."

I wandered into the "Alt Stadt" and was surprised by its non-oldness. After a while I realized I was NOT in the old city. My plan was to stay in Heidelberg with Hubertus' grandmother, Frau von Lehsten. I had called her a couple of weeks ago. My memory included mentioning the dates the 29th to the 1st of April, but when I got a call from her in Bremen on the 25th it became clear that something was amiss. She asked where I was.
In Bremen, well of course, I answered, is something wrong?
Oh, I thought you would be arriving on the 24th.
Whoops.
I got a call from an unknown number in the morning as I wandered around Heidelberg waiting for a reasonable hour to call her. Herr von Lehsten, her son of which I was unaware, was calling to get things started. We agreed to meet in front of city's university at one. I found the old city and rationalized my way into buying two cheap books to help me with my German language skills, camped in front of the library and read until he found me. Head bent and eyes to the ground with his very traditional German sports jacket he introduced himself and hurried me inside the library, showed me a locker to shove my stuff into, led me upstairs to the library (the whole time rapid firing information about the library and the city at me) and found a book which would provide me with a "literary tour of Heidelberg." He then took me outside and proceeded to give me one of the most informed and educational tours I've ever received of a city. He must have listed at least 50 exact dates, 40 first and last names of German aristocrats, and an intimidating quantity of architectural and artistic terms. His detailed knowledge of his town, region, and of Germany spanned well over a thousand years. I'm starting to feel unproductive here.

We sat in the main church of the old town as he described why for a while the church literally had a wall separating one half of the church from the other. It included one line of protestant aristocrats dying out and the next line, which was catholic, from the family taking over. Despite the majority of the population being protestant the Catholics wanted their space and power. I learned why the doors on the outside were Gothic, or, crap, was it Baroque? Have I learned anything? Or why the building across the way was Renaissance, or why the castle on the hill was all of the above. It was a crash course, and like a crash it felt, in one of the most important regions of medieval Germany/Europe. He had to go back to work, and I trudged up the hill to the castle after eating my bread and cheese. I was WIPED OUT. so I took a nap in the courtyard of this partially 600, 500, 400, and every time between year old castle. Chocolate, apple, ask for a tour, too late. Heave each leg to step for an hour to find the house where I'm staying WAY across town.

Frau von Lehsten had exactly the kind of face you want greeting you after you've born your backpack around a town for a good eight hours. Her smile creased her cheeks to cradle her eyes. Her frizzy hair welcomed my frizzy and worn soul. Still coated in last night's sweat and today's fatigue I smiled my way inside ready to skin myself to get rid of the disgust I'd had to play home to for the last 24 hours, but she offered me a shower and I took that instead. We ate on the back porch as the sun took on it's subtly pink blanket to sleep behind the hills on the other side of the valley, and oh what a recuperative meal it was. Her son, the same who'd earlier given me the tour and lives with his mother (or maybe she lives with him. I'm not sure. He's at least in his 40's), fired questions at me about my home, my education, and my religion. I ate fish and mustered up fellowship. I apologized for my table manners as I realized I had spoken with my mouth full and wasn't following customary German culinary table manners. Herr von Lehsten looked at me in surprise and almost pity as he told me, "Be exactly as you are and nothing else. Don't apologize. These traditions are an old part of our culture, which you are not a part of, and anybody that insists that you should follow them has their priorities messed up." That is actually by no means a direct quote, but it's very close to his meaning.

I found out during that day that they would both be leaving town the day after next early in the morning, which meant I could only stay with them for one night, when I had originally been planning on staying with them for about 4. They immediately made every effort to find housing for me for the rest of my stay, as my options were limited. They called every body they could, and I tried to find hostels. Herr von Lehsten woke up at 1 in the morning to hang up my clothes which he'd washed.

After a breakfast with Frau von Lehsten, I met with her son in town, who introduced me to Professor Strohm, who offered me his place for the next two nights. I asked to stay for one so that I could stay in a hostel the next night and experience the night life in town. I spent the afternoon in a museum learning about the complex political history of Heidelberg and it's surrounding area. Heidelberg was one of the few major areas of Germany that didn't get bombed at all by the Allies. Why? We wanted our headquarters in a pretty place, of course. We "Amis" (Americans), that is. Heidelberg has a lot of Americans.

The next morning Frau Strohm drove me 30 minutes to Schwezingen, where there was a castle comparable to castles like Versailles in it's gardens. After discovering it despite cloudy and cold weather for a couple of hours we went back. I grabbed my bags and soaked myself in the afternoon rain to ride a bus to the hostel. That night I met a pretty girl outside of the hostel who happened to be staying at the hostel. I asked her if she might want to eat with me, and although she'd already eaten she sat with me as I ate. We went to a bar and drank a beer and chatted for a couple of hours, and bade a bitter goodbye after a good connection at the end of a pleasant night. Heidelberg is a charming city at night with its castle on a hill.

I woke up in the morning and spoke to one of my roommates in German for a little. I went into the hallway and found another friendly roommate from Australia, with whom I'd spoken the night before. As she waited on the shower to be open I asked, "Why isn't anybody using the other showers?" She looked at me and soberly explained in her Australian accent, "You're speaking to me in German." 

The next night I stayed with yet another connection made for me by Herr von Lehsten: Tobias, a student at the university. Friendly as could be over the phone, he asked me if I might want to go to the opera with him that night, where his dad as a player in the orchestra could get us a discount. I met him that night and had my first experience of an opera. It was very modern, and I had no idea what was going on as they presented the only opera Beethoven ever wrote, but I enjoyed it never the less. Afterward Tobias, his father, and siblings sat at their dinner table and chatted over a midnight snack and wine. I had a good chemistry with the family and relaxed into the wine and the welcome of new friendship.

In the morning we ate breakfast together and I handed my accidentally stolen hostel key to Tobias, who would return it for me. He took me to the train station and I warmly hugged him goodbye after knowing him for less than 24 hours.

As you can see, Heidelberg was a flood of hospitality and almost unheard of generosity. I've been working on a theme for the last year or so. I've been thinking a lot about being thankful, and I've been thinking a lot about the themes of giving and receiving as the realization has settled in that my life has consisted up to now of mostly receiving. I've been trying to learn how to be better at being thankful, and also giving and receiving, and I've been surprised at how bad I am at all three. I know it's going to be a lifelong process, and I'll never do enough of all three. But Heidelberg was such a grenade of generosity and giving I could barely recover from it. It forced me into astounded humility and wonder as strangers welcomed me into their homes and their stories. They offered me their stories and asked for mine. They asked me to be a part of their stories; some even explicitly. A part of learning to receive has been giving up on pride. I have a hard time receiving a gift without trying to give back, and immediately if possible. I don't like just trusting some sort of natural spirit of giving and receiving, in which what goes around comes around. I'm invested in being an active part of that spirit, which doesn't mean surrendering to a natural course or stream. I want to be aware of the gifts I receive and take them with a "thank you." But I've been learning that a gift has no equal pay back. It asks humility and gratefulness, which is no payment, but it names the gift and grants it its due grace. I'm searching for an opportunity to give. I'm waiting to take in the next guest and show him why I find this world beautiful.

As I helped Herr von Lehsten plant what he claimed would from there on be referred to as "Dan's tree," he planted something in me as well. He expressed a genuine confusion that I'd apologized for my manners the day before. He just didn't get why I would do that. I explained that table manners are personally close to worthless to me, and I understand them as a cultural comfort with little more worth than any other simple comfort, but that as a guest it is a way to honor the host and thank them for their gift. He argued that anyone who placed such worth on manners was wasting energy, not to mention would they be failing to understand the difficulty of trying to fit into another culture. He suggested that, in order to show my thankfulness, I send a card to them once at my destination telling them that I'd arrived safely and in good health. I asked him if people normally did such a thing with a postcard, or what? I misunderstood. He demanded my eyes with the posture of a man trying to pass something on. Dan, he said, it doesn't matter how other people do it. It matters what you do. It matters how you show you're thankfulness. Stop worry about this cultural nonsense and do what's natural to you.

I couldn't help but absorb his wisdom, despite it's cheesy format. I've got a lot of messed up ideas about how these things are supposed to be done, and I don't think I'm the only one. Surrendering my sense of appropriateness could help, I think.