I was lucky my elementary school was only half a kilometer away from our house, so from an early age I was able to walk there and back. In younger years our nanny took me there but I hardly remember those walks. Later I really enjoyed going to school by myself because I could focus on all the small details on the way.
I have known ████████ since elementary school. He was the tallest in my class, and something always seemed a bit off about him. I liked him enough to invite him to a birthday party once. At least until he catapulted chocolate pudding at the kitchen wall with his spoon, to the amusement of all the other kids, and nearly got himself kicked out of the house and barred from ever coming back by my mom.
A weekly activity during my teenage years in Heidelberg was going "into the city," which meant taking either my bike or the tram to downtown and following an almost ritually fixed path that took a few hours to complete, incorporating stops that satisfied all my special interests.
"This looks like it's for you,” my mom said with a frown and a smile, handing me the sheet of thermal paper. It was a fax with a French sender number in the header and handwritten text in large black marker letters. The text was written in Elder Futhark, the oldest form of the runic alphabet, which was used by Germanic peoples until around the 8th century.
It was time to board the bus. I was scared and excited at the same time. I gave my mother, father, and █████ each a long hug, then stepped onto the express shuttle that would take me from Heidelberg to Frankfurt Airport. I don't really remember why we decided that taking the bus was a better idea than all of us driving to the airport for a longer goodbye, but at the time it seemed fine. I could hardly believe what lay ahead of me: a ten-month stay as an exchange student in a suburb of ██████, Texas, USA.
Early bedtime was not a problem for me. At least not on Sundays and Mondays. I was looking forward to indulging in my secret evening pastime: surfing the radio waves. The white plastic clock radio right next to my bed had a mono jack, so only the blue in-ear piece of my GameBoy headphones worked but it seemed like a practical feature because it allowed me to hear when parents would potentially come upstairs to bust me.