Living the Past

I find that I'm enjoying the past a lot more now that I'm not living in it.

We took the kids to Tuebingen the other day. It's an old medieval town only twenty minutes away, with one of the oldest and best universities in all of Germany. (Kind of like the Harvard of Germany.) And where the twins were born.

It has always been one of our favorite places to visit. We have our favorite student eatery that serves huge Pfannkuchen - and all four kids, even when two of them were newborns. (If we see them making faces when we walk into a restaurant, we just head right back out. No need to deal with that. I believe we are ALL happier this way.)

A picturesque town square complete with decorated half-wood houses and a Rathaus so pretty people get married on it. An entire medieval old town, a walk along the gondola-filled river. Church. Big old church. And lots of young and young-at-heart hippy, crunchy types and the cool, hippy stores that serve them. We feel right at home.

But even I admit to getting bored. There is a LOT to see in this area, but we have been here a LONG time. (Six years is a flicker in time to my Swabian friends here in town, but longer than either Damon or I have lived ANYWHERE before in our lives.) Been there, done that. Weren't any T-shirts to buy though.

So that when we went there this time it was nice to see that leaving a place can make it fonder in my heart.

Take the old castle. Built in 1040. Yawn. Except we aren't going to see anything like it in Australia. All of a sudden it was interesting again.

The twins played knights in the old passageways.



I managed to impress upon Andrew the need to take his picture under a sign showing where some guy from Basil (sorry dude, Watson and Crick so totally took your fifteen minutes in anywhere but Tuebingen!) who first isolated nucleic acid in the 1800s.

History. So cool.

But something I am enjoying more now only because leaving it behind makes it something special once again!