Is it possible to get nostalgic about a place you’re still living in? I’ll answer my own question by saying that if anyone is capable of such a feat of emotional acrobatics, then I am. I think I’m experiencing this kind of nostalgia right now.

I was out on the town last night because a local surf band called Leopold Kraus was having an “open house” in their practice room. This doesn’t sound like any reason to get nostalgic, but just wait.

First of all, we went out with a good friend of ours who used to live in Freiburg, but who moved to Hamburg a few years ago. He’s back in Freiburg visiting for a week, which is in itself enough to get me all nostalgic and thinking about the way things used to be before he went away.

Secondly, another good friend of ours, who usually doesn’t get out much anymore because he has a child to take care of, was actually able to go out with us last night, which also kind of made everything seem like “the old days” again.

To carry things even further: Jeremy and these two friends mentioned above are all former members of Leopold Kraus, so there’s this little nostalgic connection to the band. And the thing that probably really got to me is that the Leopold Kraus practice room is also the old Beam practice room. I had not been in that practice room since Beam’s demise, and being there really brought back the feeling of playing in a band, which is something I get ridiculously nostalgic about anyway.

What topped it all off was that there is an old chalkboard in the practice room which was used for writing out set lists - and the set list still on the chalkboard was the Beam set list from our last practice. The titles to all our songs were on that board, written out in chalk in my handwriting, like a relic from another age - or another life. It really moved me that the board hadn’t been erased, and I couldn’t stop looking at it.

So I sat in this small, rather dank little practice room, surrounded by my friends, drinking nice German beer, rocking out to some pretty cool surf music - I was perfectly content, having a great time - and all of a sudden I missed Freiburg. Pretty bizarre, considering the fact that I’m in Freiburg.

I guess I just missed the way things used to be, or at least the way I remember things being, before a lot of good friends moved away, before my band fell apart, before…whatever. Before everything seemed to change. Of course, I know that I - like most people - have a tendency to remember things as having been much better (or sometimes worse) than they really were. Life wasn’t really so much more fun “before" than it is now. But when faced with the problems and uncertainties of the present and the future, the fake rosy glow of the past is very enticing.

I suppose I was also anticipating how I will feel when we leave Freiburg, and when I’ll look back on this time of my life and see all that’s going on now with that rosy glow. Now whenever I’m enjoying myself in Freiburg, I find myself thinking, “This will all be over soon - enjoy it while you can.”

It’s like pressing on a bruise: I know it’s going to hurt, but I still can’t stop doing it. I know I should just shut my brain off and enjoy myself every once in a while, but I make myself remember that the Freiburg part of my life is going to be coming to a close very soon.

Not that all my fun ends when I leave Freiburg. I’m expecting Brighton to be a lot of fun, and actually I can’t wait to get there. But I’ve become acutely aware of the transience of my experiences here in Freiburg, and of the time limit set on those experiences. This serves to make every enjoyable moment in Freiburg that much more precious, but it also makes everything that much more bittersweet.

Alright, time to stop thinking out loud. It was a very long night. I fell into bed well after the sun had started to come up, I dreamed intensely of sausage biscuits and scrambled eggs and giant café lattes, and at one in the afternoon (!) I woke up starving with a Smiths’ song (“London") stuck in my head. So my excuse for such a rambling little journal entry is that I’ve just been completely out of it all day. No more surf music for me for a while.