There’s a certain time in May, every year without fail, when the Regional train that takes us from the city to work, suddenly takes on a funny odour. Sickly sweet, the smell of hot, stale fruit wine. And every year we say to ourselves ‘we really should go to the Baumbluetenfest before we leave Germany.’
Gal is pretty much the reason that office work is not as tiresome as it should be. Sure, the alleviation of boredom that Gal brings correlates pretty meanly with an alleviation of productivity, but you guys, thesis writing is soooo boring, I take what I get. One of Gal’s many talents is the ability to accurately throw stress balls at my head, full velocity. It’s such a skill that I think he put it on his CV, and we’ve now both taken to wearing safety glasses in the office more often than in the lab. Which leads to the point that, when Gal told me that I absolutely must visit the Britzer garden, I got on my bikes, and visited that darn garden!
A couple of weekends ago, Andy, whose surname pretty much directly translates into English as ‘Cherryblossom’, marched us off to an event honouring the family flower.