After boarding the train back to Goettingen I am on edge. I shall have only two nights there before leaving again to fly to London, and I need to take care of my laptop which became malfunctional after trying to connect to the hotel internet server. There will also be e-mail to catch up on, laundry and packing, the Wednesday class to prepare, and the paper I am delivering on Friday to be finished and sent to the commentator.
On top of all this I feel apprehension about returning to the relative desolation of Goettingen. On the bus from the train station I am not happy to be back, the alienation strikes again after the warm care and attention I received in Innsbruck. But when I go in to the institute to send a message to the computer technician asking for help, there is a nice surprise. My colleagues invite me to join an evening excursion to celebrate the coming of the warm weather. We drive through a gentle hilly area, fields lined with orange-red poppies, to a ferry crossing on the Weser river, in the small village of Hemelyn, where we sit under the thick shade of a linden tree supping on wurst and fat pickled cucumbers. On the way back a hedgehog and a deer cross the road in front of us.
