Trading Voyage

Years ago I visited Germany on a business trip. There were some things we needed, and we wanted to see whether we could get them in Germany.

I went to a meeting near the city of Darmstadt. Our host was a very nice guy. We spoke English. I barely know a word of German. Anyway, after our business was dealt with, we got to talking about the city and its history. I mentioned to our host that I was surprised by how modern all the buildings were. He explained kindly that, like most cities in Germany, Darmstadt has very few buildings more than about 60 years old. That's because the cities were wrecked by bombing during the war. But our host recommended a sort of "old town" that had largely escaped destruction. We went and saw much, much older buildings there. I said this is amazing. I said nothing in the States is much more than 200 or 300 years old, most often less than 100. I said we don't have that really old stuff.

But our host disagreed, though still kindly, as we sat sipping espresso among the smoking ruins of his city. No, he said. No, there is old stuff there too. You just don't know about it.

Afterward, I did feel bad about one thing. We probably should have brought some sort of small presents for our hosts. But we only thought of that after we returned to the States. Of course at that point we decided to just let it go.



Notes
Sadly this really happened just as I described. I could lie, but that seems even worse than telling the truth.

But the smoke and wreckage, of course, were only in my imagination. Right?

The host is unnamed not only for literary reasons but also because I really don't have his name. I wrote it in my notebook at the time, but the notebook and the information in it belong to the company I worked for. I certainly couldn't take that stuff with me when I left. That would be wrong.