The week-end was the nicest in a while. For once, not a single incident of note, not a screw up, just relax and a new experience. And quite a new one.
The funny thing is, after a month that I go up to Mainz every week-end, I'm starting to recognize a small group of people who, like me, seem to be doing the trip every week-end or two... we should form a club and call ourselves the Sentimental Travellers. So it happened that I spent the flight to Mainz chatting with a Laura, whose boyfriend lives somewhere near Mainz as well and who I'm sure I must have seen at least a couple of times already (and she said the same), while on the way back I spent my time chatting with a Luca and a Michele, with whom I had talked on the way back to Rome last week as well, who have their significant others in Frankfurt and Koblenz. With all of them, the parting line was an "Ok, see you at the next flight!".
To be said, we are indeed a strange category of people, very different in everything except in one thing: only hand baggage and online check in to sit in front of the plane and be the first to run out of it and towards the bus.
As for the week-end, as I got out of the terminal (5 minutes after landing) I managed to get on a bus which drove so fast and in such a thick fog that I arrived 15 minutes ahead of planned time without having had any chance to realize we were being early. That meant that I ended up waiting at the bus stop for 15 minutes before Susanne arrived right at the time I had told her I would had been there.
For the rest, on saturday the new experience was spending 3 hours at the meeting of the Young Socialists of Mainz on saturday, hearing people talking politics in germane with everything closed by everybody singing "the International"... not just the first stanza, the whole thing! Me! Listening to a song that in Italy (not in the rest of the world tho) is hopelessly and exclusively linked to the communist party, rather than to the reformist socialism. Anyway, it was an interesting experience, which funnily reminded me of my ELSA days for how the meeting and the votes were handled.
After that, a visit to Mainz's main Weihnachtsmarkt, meaning the Christmas Market, where I couldn't help buying food, candies, chocolate (mostly for Susanne, and ten to find out she decided to give up candies for a while... women...) but abstained from the Glühwein, the hot spicy wine they drink in Germany. I must say, it looked nicer and bigger than the one I had been in Freiburg two years ago, but the one in Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin was by far more lively and interesting (even if not more crowded). Home soon (was -3 degrees) for a good movie (I brought the DVD of "Scent of a Woman" from home) and sunday came too soon and the flight back home with it. A relaxing week-end, as I said, which left me pleasantly tired by sunday night.
And monday came and I woke up even more tired, as funnily enough a queen size bed when alone can be much more uncomfortable than a single bed shared with someone and sleep didn't come easy. And today was one of those day that makes Garfield utters the famous "I hate mondays".
For three years I've been severely under-utilized at work and now that supposedly I'm about to leave that office, I'm suddenly submerged with things and assigned tasks and duties. And, finally, I started with a specific programme at the pool. There are several for the people like me who go there on their own without relying on instructors, in escalating level of difficulty. 8 easy, 8 medium, 6 hard. After 3 months of constant, almost daily, swimming, I started with the 7th level of the medium programmes... and didn't even find it so terrible. If I wasn't so exhausted that it took me 2 hours to write this simple entry and Susanne's net wasn't still dead, I'd be cheerful and even vaguely proud.
The funny thing is, after a month that I go up to Mainz every week-end, I'm starting to recognize a small group of people who, like me, seem to be doing the trip every week-end or two... we should form a club and call ourselves the Sentimental Travellers. So it happened that I spent the flight to Mainz chatting with a Laura, whose boyfriend lives somewhere near Mainz as well and who I'm sure I must have seen at least a couple of times already (and she said the same), while on the way back I spent my time chatting with a Luca and a Michele, with whom I had talked on the way back to Rome last week as well, who have their significant others in Frankfurt and Koblenz. With all of them, the parting line was an "Ok, see you at the next flight!".
To be said, we are indeed a strange category of people, very different in everything except in one thing: only hand baggage and online check in to sit in front of the plane and be the first to run out of it and towards the bus.
As for the week-end, as I got out of the terminal (5 minutes after landing) I managed to get on a bus which drove so fast and in such a thick fog that I arrived 15 minutes ahead of planned time without having had any chance to realize we were being early. That meant that I ended up waiting at the bus stop for 15 minutes before Susanne arrived right at the time I had told her I would had been there.
For the rest, on saturday the new experience was spending 3 hours at the meeting of the Young Socialists of Mainz on saturday, hearing people talking politics in germane with everything closed by everybody singing "the International"... not just the first stanza, the whole thing! Me! Listening to a song that in Italy (not in the rest of the world tho) is hopelessly and exclusively linked to the communist party, rather than to the reformist socialism. Anyway, it was an interesting experience, which funnily reminded me of my ELSA days for how the meeting and the votes were handled.After that, a visit to Mainz's main Weihnachtsmarkt, meaning the Christmas Market, where I couldn't help buying food, candies, chocolate (mostly for Susanne, and ten to find out she decided to give up candies for a while... women...) but abstained from the Glühwein, the hot spicy wine they drink in Germany. I must say, it looked nicer and bigger than the one I had been in Freiburg two years ago, but the one in Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin was by far more lively and interesting (even if not more crowded). Home soon (was -3 degrees) for a good movie (I brought the DVD of "Scent of a Woman" from home) and sunday came too soon and the flight back home with it. A relaxing week-end, as I said, which left me pleasantly tired by sunday night.
And monday came and I woke up even more tired, as funnily enough a queen size bed when alone can be much more uncomfortable than a single bed shared with someone and sleep didn't come easy. And today was one of those day that makes Garfield utters the famous "I hate mondays".For three years I've been severely under-utilized at work and now that supposedly I'm about to leave that office, I'm suddenly submerged with things and assigned tasks and duties. And, finally, I started with a specific programme at the pool. There are several for the people like me who go there on their own without relying on instructors, in escalating level of difficulty. 8 easy, 8 medium, 6 hard. After 3 months of constant, almost daily, swimming, I started with the 7th level of the medium programmes... and didn't even find it so terrible. If I wasn't so exhausted that it took me 2 hours to write this simple entry and Susanne's net wasn't still dead, I'd be cheerful and even vaguely proud.
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