Exodus

The apartment was a hollow echo of what it had once been. It wasn't just empty. It was barren. Stefan K sat alone at his desk clicking away on his laptop--the only item still left in the entire room.

Dustin, Stefan, and I stepped inside and succeeded at snapping Stefan K out of his reverie.

"Hey guys," he said as he stood up from his desk. His expression was an impossible-to-mimic mixture of elation and disappointment.

"This is it."

He smiled as he shook each of our hands and slapped us on the back. The time had come for Stefan's departure back to Germany.

***

We sat on the balcony outside Stefan K's room. It was close to 7:30 p.m. He had to catch the train to Ben-Gurion International Airport at 11:50 p.m. for his 5:00 a.m. Lufthansa flight back to Berlin.

Ryan and Dominique joined us along with Stefan K's roommate, Mike. The Dominator had brought a bag full or Royal Dutch beer for the occasion; a brew that neither Ryan nor Stefan cared to indulge themselves with. The German contingent at TAU had probably blitzkrieged through thirty or more cases of the stuff since their arrival.

This of course was more than acceptable in our minds. As Germans, their beer-drinking abilities were considerable, impressive, and far more responsible than their American counterparts.

One of the better attributes of European culture (if there is such an homogenous thing) is that they drink as part of a social etiquette as opposed to an American's mere desire to drink to get as trashed as possible. Sure, it may not be nearly as entertaining and make for far fewer stories, but it does at least cut down on the funeral services.

Being on both the kicking and receiving end of that particular fact, I can appreciate the disparity.

Royal Dutch struck me as the equivalent of Natty Light back home. I could tell immediately that it was about the quantity as opposed to the quality. This was my first Royal Dutch. Shortly after tasting it, I swore that it would also be my last.

Stefan K raised his can: "L'chaim."

"L'chaim!"

***

"Did you work on the Hill?" Mike asked Dustin bluntly.

"I worked for a think tank," Dustin replied affably.

"Which one?" Mike followed up.

"The Heritage Foundation," Dustin responded.

"Alright, some fellow conservatives!" Mike said enthusiastically. "Wait, are you also conservative?"

"Yea," Stefan said in his French-Irish accent. He leaned back against the balcony's side wall, his chair on the cusp of collapsing if he proceeded any further. "Well, according to Drew, I think I am," he added with a hearty laugh.

"You're looking at the first French member of the NRA," I stated unequivocally.

Mike, clearly pleased to finally meet the rumored "conservative underground" took Dustin up in a conversational maelstrom. Come to find out, his mother was the civilian head of Bethesda Naval Hospital and dealt with our wounded warriors on a daily basis.

The topic soon centered around D.C. Ryan told an amusing story about a canoeing incident on the Potomac when he had worked in D.C. Dustin shared a few stories of his own from his time at Heritage. For a little while, I simply zoned out as a cavalcade of memories from Washington D.C. flooded my mind, jolting memories long pigeonholed in the deep recesses of my mind.

"Sometimes I still look around and can't believe that I'm in Tel Aviv," Dustin said, interrupting my thoughts.

"Yea, it went by so fast, too," Stefan K added. His German accent seemed wistful.

"In a way it has, but I'm gonna be honest, there are times when I think that everything before I came to Israel was just a dream," I said sincerely.

"It is wery much like a dream for me as well," Stefan K added, dropping the hard 'v' sound and opting instead for the more familiar 'w' sound of his native tongue.

"I mean, I've felt like I've been here forever, dude," I uttered with a head nod. Dustin nodded slowly to that as well.

There was a pause. It was starting to get cold outside.

"It has been the best experience of my life. Germany is familiar, quiet, and more comfortable. Israel is none of these things, but it is so interesting," Stefan iterated.

"Must be really interesting for an Alabama and Missouri boy, too," Mike added with a grin.

"Yea!" Dustin and I said simultaneously.

***

It was 10:00 p.m. Two and half hours had passed by in what seemed like a minute. We had relieved the Dahab debacle for the benefit of Mike, who hadn't heard all the details of that epic trip. Both Stefans and myself also rehashed the Bethlehem trip on Christmas Eve.

As the clock moved closer to 10:00, there was just five of us left. Ryan and Stefan had left early to go cook dinner.

"That Dahab trip I'll be rehashing for the next 30 years," I said as a shook my head.

"It was as you say, 'epic,'" Stefan said with a laugh.

Laughter was followed by a silence once again. Dustin looked a sleepy as I felt. Stefan looked like he didn't want to leave.

I extended my hand toward Stefan.

"It was a pleasure, sir."

"It was a pleasure."

We shook hands one last time.

"When you come to Germany, you know you have a place to stay."

"And when you come to 'Bama, we'll go mud-riding and shoot stuff."

"Sounds like a plan."



From (L) to (R): Benjamin, Stefan K, Me, Dominator, Dustin, Tyler, Ryan, Liz, Stefan, and Elana (Bethlehem)



From (L) to (R): Dustin, Elana, Me, and Stefan K (Taba, Egypt)



From (L) to (R): Stefan K, Elana, Stefan, Dustin, and Me (Dahab, Egypt)