October 16 - Paderborn

Slept in today! Sim had work so Lygia and I went to the Mensa and had lunch with Christian, Tobi, Alice, Brady and another American kid from WMU called Kevin.

It was rather surreal for us all to meet a year or so later and we all thought so, but it was an awesome time. Christian and Tobi also had a tradition to get coffee after lunch, so I got to be part of that too. It was great to just hang out with them on their turf. We all agreed to meet at night and do some sort of bar crawl of the city. I wanted to see their haunts and Christian had a map of where all the bars/clubs were (which he got from university orientation!!) so we hit up four different places around the city. Sim also joined us later (she was doing stuff with her family) and Dutta brought Marius and another friend! Karina came too and Brady brought Kevin.

It was really great to see everyone: the “old” and the “new” Germans and the American kids who all had a WMU connection in the same spot – Chrstian said he might be heading to MIT and it turned out Karina and Lygia had the same class a year apart. It’s hard describe what studying abroad was like but it’s not just where you stuffy as much as it is who else there is and the shared experience of discovering a new place. Anyway, long story short, it was a fun night. A lot of drinking and hugging and disco foxing took place and new friends were made.