Dinner with Dirk and Marlene, who agreed to join us for a meal that many may call cliched.

Don't care. We wanted schweinshaxe and schnitzel.

Dirk and Marlene represent another multi-decade friendship. Pauper backpackers in Greece, Dirk was in the same hostel as we had chosen in Thessaloniki. Soon after, he visited us in Melbourne. And again, a few years later, when he and Marlene honeymooned in Australia.

Now, we visit and re-visit them in Germany, both here and in their previous home in Mainz.