Leaving Germany

Tomorrow it is time to leave Konstanz for Austria. The last leg of the sabbatical is finally upon me - I can't believe that next month this time we will be back in Sunnyvale, Max will be speaking Spanish again, we'll be hanging around the pool, shop at Safeway, and work. Strange. When we took of on January 19 I somehow thought that these six month will never come to an end, it seemed too remote a possiblity, too much was lying between us and July. But now its almost there. I am thinking about the next one ....
The last week was busy, lots of last minute stuff to take care of. Family business, last visits with friends, things to buy, places to go, people to meet. Some of the things I had planned on doing ever since I arrived but sort of deluded myself into believeing that I had all that time left and finally the last week was there and it was now or never.
I took a bunch of bike rides around Konstanz, visited places I spent a lot of time when I still lived here. I took my rides in the evenings, when the Europrean Championship soccer games where on and the streets where empty, park benches available where normally butts are piled three deep and an unusual quiet prevailed - unless somebody scored a goal. It was interesting to see how in some sense I was remote controlled: I took roads and paths without thinking about why and where they are taking me, then remembering that, yes, this is where we used to BBQ during highschool and this is where Jasi and I used to ride around on summer afternoons, and - man - this road was closed to bikes even back then I simply forgot and now I am stuck.
I also visited the university where I spent nine years of my life and got my Ph.D. That was the stragest trip down memory lane. The bike path is slightly different from back in the days, all the students have cell phones and wear different cloths and haircuts but once one is in front of the main entrance it is like a time wormhole - all of a sudden I am back 15 years . I entered and walked around gingerly almost dreamlike: the same floor, the same beat up signs, the same bookstore, the same posters (or at least they sort of looked the same), the same color scheme. I could have closed my eyes and walked right towards the biology building, up the stairs and to the elevator. But I didn't - I walked with my eyes wide open in amazement and disbelief down the stairs, right over by the coffee shop (used to be a bank - so big change), around the corner, through the door and up the stairs again towards the biology tower. The only thing that had really changed was that the downstairs woman's bathroom - the one I had be counting on using - was removed in favor of something useless that I do not remember. I visited my old lab, especially my Ph.D.adviser - now retired but still in his old office. It has been 15 years since I last worked in a lab and - honestly - I haven't missed that work a minute since I put that pipette down and run my last DNA sequencing gel in 1993. All the more weird it was to be back and feel like I had just been there recently and could just pick up that slab gel (nobody does slab gels anymore) and run down to the dark room to develop it. It was very nice, though, to catch up and get the story on my colleagues from back then and what they are doing now.
Today, my last day, my parents and I went back to the island of Reichenau to the local fleamarket. It is tiny tiny compared to the Konstanz fleamarket but nevertheless it was fun. And I have to admit that all the restraint I showed at the Konstanz fleamarket was absent today and so I bought a few things, some of which will have to remain here for the time being. we bought a little bike for Max's next visit, a coat for Dad, a coat for me, a pair of orange suede boots, bunches of books (it is raining in Austria and it is cold and so I thought that I better take some stuff to read for those long gray afternoon) and a few more odds and ends (let's not talk about it).
So now my bags are packed but I am not sure I am ready to leave. Sure I want to see Uli and Max again and am looking forward to meeting them tomorrow evening but I could stay a bit longer, do some of the things I somehow didn't manage to do in five weeks.
Apparently we will have Internet access in Austria so stay tuned for news from the Alps!