Storytime

[oloriel]

A long time ago in a hospital not too far from where I grew up, a young man and a young woman were doing their internship. She came from around Bonn, he was from around Aachen, and if coincidence hadn't brought them both to backwater Lennep for their internship, they'd probably never have met. As it was, one day during lunch break, the young man and a friend were searching for a third man to join them for a round of cards. The "third man" was my mother, and the young man (as you doubtlessly have guessed by now) was my father, although of course they didn't know that at the time. Both of them had a significant other when they met (a piece of information my mother thought would console me back when I had first fallen in love with Jörg who had a girlfriend who was not me at the time) but eventually realised they perhaps loved each other a bit more than their respective boy- or girlfriend. They started dating, eventually moved in together, and after four years of sharing a flat and no end in sight, they decided to marry, which was done on November 6th, 1982, a cold but sunny autumn day.

Knowing my parents as they are today, I find it somewhat difficult to imagine the first years of their relationship. Not because of the sex or anything, but because of their adventurous journeys. In those days my mother had a yellow jeep, and my parents-to-be travelled through Europe in that jeep: down to Greece and beyond. They were about my age then. If I wanted to go to Greece by car nowadays, my mother would have nightmares for weeks; if I announced I wanted to go to Morocco by car, she'd probably lapse into traumatic shock before I could have started packing. That she did such things herself in those days is pretty much inconceivable.
But I suppose that just goes to show how having children changes your perception of the dangers of the world. They didn't stop travelling when they had kids - for as long as I can remember, there has been at least one major holiday trip a year - but the journeys turned into more calculable adventures with advance bookings, proper itineraries and fixed destinations, no longer the hours-long "let's see where we end up" drives. I suppose I should be glad they did these uncalculable journeys back then, because I was conceived during one of those trips, most likely in a tent in some Yugoslawian (there still was Yugoslawia back then) village.

At any rate, my parents celebrate their silver wedding today. As they have always loved travelling, a journey to celebrate the occasion seemed indicated, but today's weekday, and last weekend I insisted on being in Veldenz, so the weekend before that was chosen instead. That's where that trip to Venice came from.
I wish I could put up the photos in celebration, but I still haven't managed to edit more than half, so that'll have to wait. Again.