My dearest Louisa picked me up at the Frankfurt Flughafen with a fresh soft Bretzel—what more can I say? She is wonderful.

*For those of you who are unfortunate enough never to have eaten a Bretzel, imagine a soft pretzel like we have in the US, and then imagine it being 5 times BETTER: that is about what a German Bretzel is. It really isn't that different, just far superior.*

The next few days slid lazily by, in a lovely haze as I caught up with an old friend. Some of the highlights included:

• Getting kind of lost in a castle garden…
• Eating a ridiculous amount of chips as we watched the first 1.5 seasons of a German dubbed "Walking Dead" (pausing frequently to comment on the plot holes: "why are all the zombies suddenly faster in this scene?")
• Chatting and shopping as we walked around town.
• Eating an ice cream cone that was half basil and half rosemary-honey flavored.
• Getting alllll dolled up (even curling my hair) to go to the birthday party in the apartment on the floor below hers, then deciding it was kinda lame and we didn't actually know anyone, taking a walk around the block, then deciding to just have our own party as we made Käsespätzle in her tiny kitchen at 23:30 at night instead.

All of these lovely, random relaxing activities were a great way to get over my jet-lag, remember our amazing time together, both in Westby Wisconsin and Pforzheim Germany long ago in 10^th grade…It all came to an end when out alarms went off at 3:30 AM this morning, and we had a rainy walk back to the bus station (loaded up with my purchases, much chocolate that she had given me, and for a panicked moment, we though without my phone…but it turned out I had it) and off I went back to Frankfurt, and on to Berlin for the next stage in my adventure.

Photos #