with difficult anniversaries, come joyous ones.
today marks the fifteenth anniversary of the day florian and i met.
and (are you sitting down?) there's a story. shocking, i know.

i was 21. i'd just graduated from college and, disillusioned with academia, had decided to pool what money i could and plan a trip. my close friend pete had just moved to dublin to be with his newfound partner, so i figured that was a good place to start. i bought a backpack. i bought a "let's go." i bought a plane ticket.

after a week with my friends, i set out on my own. that first night was at the kilkenny youth hostel. i bought some brown bread, some butter, a bit of jam, some tea. i felt independent -- truly self-sufficient -- for the first time in my life.

the next night i decided to do something "crazy" and take a bus out to foulksrath castle, a hostel just outside of town. it was a chilly place, not very cozy, filled with stone and history. the kitchen was massive, a sea of stainless steel. i found a pot, a spoon and a bowl, and set about making my dinner -- baked beans. there were two other people in the kitchen, a shortish fellow with a british accent who kept chatting me up, and a tall, quiet man in sweatpants and birkenstocks. i moved to other side of the kitchen to avoid the chatty cathy. not finding a can opener, i used my swiss army knife to open my can of beans (a lengthy process, if you've ever tried it). when i was done, the tall man asked if he could borrow it -- to open his own can of beans.

in the dining hall, the table in the window was free so i took it. the tall traveler came in, looked around, came over to my table, and asked if he might join me. "of course," i told him.

he opened up a battered aluminum tin and took out some sausage, an apple, and some bread, which he ate along with his beans. i asked him where he was from. "bavaria," he said. i chuckled and said, "unfortunately all i know from bavaria is the donut." he laughed and explained it was a province in germany; he lived outside of munich. then he asked where i was from. "well...," i said, faltering. "i'm american... but i'm not an asshole, i promise!"

we both laughed. and something clicked into place.

that night we compared itineraries. he was headed north; i was headed south. his english was good but not great, and i spoke no german, so we spent the evening waltzing with words -- i'd need to find other ways of saying something complicated, and he used the few words he had to say many complicated things. at the end of the evening, he asked me if i would be willing to go with him to the youth hostel he'd been to the night before, to pick up a pair of pants he'd left there.

it meant backtracking.

it meant changing my itinerary.

it meant trusting a stranger.

"okay," i said.

we ended up staying two nights at that hostel, in enniskerry. we ended up combining our intineraries and traveling around ireland together, listening to tapes of the last radio show i'd deejayed before leaving college (bonding over joan armatrading and "solsbury hill"). we ended up meeting again in munich (at his invitation) before i headed home, not knowing if we'd ever see each other again. we ended up writing to each other every day. we ended up living together, after i sold my car and bought a one-way ticket to munich the following february. we ended up getting married in 1995.

we ended up here, living our lives.