In which the sun smiles on Lübeck.

What started out as an evening trip with a friend to see another friend's show in Lübeck on Friday turned into half a weekend away exploring the Hansestadt to the north. The dance theater performance took place in the Heiligen-Geist-Hospital -- a beautiful space that has been used as a type of retirement home since the time of the Reformation, though today it is also known for its particularly photogenic Christmas market. I'd been there a few years ago, but experiencing it at night with the light shining in through the arched windows onto the vaulted, painstakingly painted ceiling, enjoying the silence in the moments before the show began and then listening to the musicians fill the space with their instruments and the dancers fill it with their bodies -- 'twas such a lovely thing to live through.

We ended up staying over at our friend's shared apartment in a quirky, 14-century house that was spread out over multiple levels, modern and warm while slanted and very, very old, and filled with young people and bright colors. After a heavy sleep, we brunched mightily and then spent hours walking around the old city and along its canals and river on a glorious early-fall day. The trees were considering yellowing while young families shook their branches, sending chestnuts flying; tiny alleyways concealed secret gardens and warded off Pinklers with video cameras and the threats of broadcasting rogue urinators on Yu Tub, the sun shining warm while we dipped our feet in deceptively cold water; the sunflowers tall and gangly in their final days. A superb adventure before going our separate ways, mine leading -- very sleepily but contentedly -- back to Hamburg.