I’m never going to forget this night. No, really. Ask me in 20 years.

The CIA, 3 x bird poop, 1958, Pasadena, and so much more.

This is what potentially happens when you sit “shared German table” style at an outdoor restaurant in Germany.

Those were the greatest people I’ve ever met. — Li, Darmstadt, Germany, on the walk home.

We really only wanted to have Käsespätzle in Darmstadt because my mom asked me to–and I love it too. The best (the only?) in town was only 2-or-so kilometers away. Hermann was out at a golf game, so Li and went. Little did we know the night we were in for.

“I’m never going to forget this night. No, really. Ask me in 20 years.” — Li

OK, I will.

It’s so late now, I’m going to edit this in the morning, but here are just a few bullet points for my recall. But this is one of those pieces where I could turn it into a short story, a philosophical travel piece or a novel.

• Coins on the train tracks
• Castles in the forest
• Rationale for a GoPro
• Yellow mustaches and 70 percent of the population smokes
• Don’t miss homeless people in San Francisco
• Sharing picnic bench tables
• 45 minutes until the dinner will come
• Pasadena for 3 years
• 1958 ship to Germany
• Rohm GmBH and Darmstadt
• Big, nasty, wet, black bird poop splats on our table!
• I probably work for the CIA (guy talking into my phone about his tax situation)
• The exotic bird festival in Mannheim
• Nastier, bigger, blacker, stinkier poops #2 and #3
• The bird walking into the vet tomorrow, “Doc, I’ve been having some stomach issues. Last night, I pooped 3 times! It just came flying out, I couldn’t hold back.”
• How the kitchen staff place bets on whose going to get hit tonight. How they watch the unsuspecting patrons think they’re getting the best seats in the house.
• Her moth dating Arnold Schwarzenegger and how she probably isn’t his daughter.
• Oh my God, these are lots of notes!
• Li probably remembers even more, I’ll ask him in the morning.
• Talking with Li about travel and how “this is it, this is what it’s like, this is what I love to do” (talking with strangers at a shared table in a foreign country)
• Guys at table behind us saying that we deserved to get pooped on because we were screaming and laughing so much (could be an entire article on this scene alone).