So yesterday I got up even earlier than usual and left for Bielefeld. I love going by train. I could spend all morning reading and knitting and looking out the window.
The only thing I didn't like is that the restaurant car on the train didn't have real, hot food. Due to a technical difficulty with their cooling they only served sandwiches and chocolate bars.
Now this has been the fifth time in a row or so that there was either no food or only very little food on a train I've been on so I might revert back to taking all my own food from now on. I don't know what changed, everything else is excellent, the trains are mostly on time, the conductors and everyone are nice and polite, and tells you what's up, and the trains are mostly clean.
Then I found my hotel which is fine, and right next to the train station but not noisy. And then I started walking. First to my old Gymnasium, then to the castle on the hill where I used to spend days and days looking out over the city and daydreaming, then I walked all the way back to where we used to live, to my old elementary school, and then all the way back.
It is a little weird, things haven't changed as much as I thought they would. Almost every house I passed was the exact same as in 1982 apart from a coat of paint. And where once was a big field of wheat there are now houses and houses. Which look like they are decades old too.
This part of Germany is rather different from the one I live in now. Where I live, close to Munich, construction is booming. There are loads of jobs in Munich, and not enough housing, so the town I live in is constantly changing. Everywhere I look an old family home gets torn down and a much bigger house with several appartments, or several houses will appear in its place.
That's not what happens here in Bielefeld. There is construction, and newness but where I used to live looks almost frozen in time.
I'm very happy to be here. This still feels a little like home but I'll also be very happy to go back home where I live now. I love it there, and the life I made for myself.
And today is ravelry meeting time! I get to meet some of the people in person that I only know through the computer, and I'll be taking a spinning class that I'm looking forward to, and I will look at all.the.yarn and all.the.fiber.
I can't wait.
Die Häuser auf dem Feld dürften inzwischen auch schon um die zwanzig Jahre alt sein. 1995 war ich das letzte Mal auf dem Mittelaltermarkt bei der Sparrenburg und da war schon ein Großteil des Feldes als Baugrund verkauft und die Bauarbeiten sollten bald starten.
Ich bin aber auch immer wieder überrascht, wie wenig sich in diesem Teil der Stadt ändert …
Ich war davor das letzte Mal 1994 dort und die Häuser sehen tatsächlich so aus, als seien sie Mitte der 90er entstanden. Wahrscheinlich sind sie dann bald gebaut worden.
Die restliche Stadt sah auch noch so ziemlich so aus wie ich sie in Erinnerung hatte. Spannend.
Nach so vielen Jahren, in denen rund um die U-Bahn gebaut wurde, waren vermutlich sämtliche Bielefelder so erleichtert, dass mal keine Bauaktivitäten waren, dass niemand jemals wieder etwas bauen wollte. 😉