Except for the name shield, the railway station looked unfamiliar. Now brightly painted and its hundred-year-old shell refurbished with wide doors and much glass, it seemed not the place where Ben had taken the train to leave home more than twenty years ago.It was then six-o-clock in the morning as he waited for his train, with two suitcases at his feet. It was just dawning and cold. Ben was on his own; nobody had come to see him off. His mother was unwell, his father on nightshift, his sister, offended. She possibly even hated him. Tony, his closest friend, had not managed to get out of bed.So, nobody was there to farewell him. And Ben was not just leaving home to work in Salzburg or Vienna as other young locals did. He was leaving for Australia, the other side of the world. True, Ben had assured his mother – believing that it might be true – that he would return after a two-year working holiday.Now, twenty-one years later, as the train that had brought him pulled out, Ben stood again on the platform of that now so different seeming station. Nobody had come to welcome him home. And he questioned for a moment, was it that still?His mother had died many years ago; his father had remarried a woman he had never met. His sister had divorced her husband. Ben and his brother-in-law had liked each other. His sister, Ben was sure, had never forgiven him for leaving his then already sick mother to go to Australia.And Tony, well, Tony was dead! Was it really fourteen years ago that father had written that Tony had been killed, crashing his motorbike on a steep mountain track?Ben, therefore, was just like the dozen or so other arrivals that milled now through the station: A short-stay guest arriving in a holiday destination. Like them, he took a taxi to his hotel.Unlike most of them, Ben had not made his booking on the strength of a brochure or web information. He had always known the Hotel Diana, having grown-up nearby. Anadolu Yakası Escort Linda, the owners’ daughter, had been in his grade and form through their eight years of schooling. He, Linda, and her tagalong, three years younger brother Gerd, had been on/off playmates into their early teenage years before drifting apart.Linda’s and Gerd’s parents, the hotel’s owners, had not paid much attention to him. They probably never knew his name. Therefore, Ben did not expect to be recognised or given special treatment by staying in the Hotel Diana. For Ben, it was, mainly, a sentimentality that he chose this hotel for his stay in Gastein and with it the familiar surroundings of his childhood.However, the Hotel Diana, when the taxi pulled up, had changed even more than the railway station. Its granite stone walls, fashionable at the turn of the last century, had been rough-cast and painted white. And now it had modern, double-glazed windows. The main entrance from the road had now large, glass double doors that lead into a stylish reception lounge.The most significant change was on the lower level. The hotel had been built on a decline with road and entrance on top. Now the kitchen, dining, and entertainment area on the level below had been opened up with large windows and doors to a multi-terraced garden. All in all, the familiar Hotel Diana had changed beyond recognition.When Ben stepped up to the counter in the reception, a tall, slim woman rose from her desk in the adjoining, glassed-in office. She came out, greeting him with a welcoming smile.She was beautiful, tall, and slim, a natural blonde, with just a suggestion of lipstick and no further need for make-up. Her age, beyond the twenties, Ben could only guess. Returning her greeting, Ben gave his full name and told her he had made a booking.As she typed the information he had given in to the computer, she suddenly Anadolu Yakası Escort Bayan paused. A smile began to spread over her face as her eyes glanced between Ben’s face and his details on the computer screen.With a much broader smile than the earlier, more formal one, she said, “I’m so sorry, Ben. I should have recognised you immediately. I’m Christine. Remember – the sister of Erika and Tony. You taught me to ride your motorbike.” Then, bursting into a laugh, she hurried from behind the counter with her arms stretched out, all ready to hug Ben.At the last moment, Christine regained a degree of self-possession and only grabbed the two hands of the amazed and speechless Ben. He had half-expected to meet Linda or Gerd at the hotel. But Christine? There had been no connection between Erika – his then, long ago, first-ever love – and her kid-sister Christine with the Hotel Diana.And now Christine pressed and shook Ben’s hands and apologised for not having recognised his name. She had, she said, completed his web-booking. After registering his Australian address and Dr. title, his not uncommon surname of Hofer had not alerted her that she knew him.All bubbling with excitement, Christine dragged the unresisting Ben into her office. She quickly made them on a handy little coffee-maker two espressos, joking that she needed to settle her excitement about meeting him again.Then, almost at ease, Ben and Christine began to exchange bits about their respective lives since they parted more than twenty years ago.Ben did not talk at length about all the things he had done in – for Christine – unfamiliar Australia. He told her that, after deciding to stay in Australia, he went to night school. Getting a scholarship, he went to University, became a teacher, and studied some more. Now he was a lecturer at the prominent University where he had been a student. He Escort Anadolu Yakası had also married. It had not lasted, and he was divorced. After his brief visit here in Gastein, he would spend a term each at two universities in Germany as a guest lecturer.In the tone and way Christine told her story, there was a suggestion of wistfulness. For Ben, it contrasted so noticeably from the joy she expressed about meeting him again.Christine had, on leaving school, completed a diploma in Hospitality Studies. She started work in the Hotel Diana. Christine grinned and, with a shrug of her shoulders, continued, “As you see, I’m still here. When the original owners retired, the new one took me over with the hotel and inventory. It was Gerd, the son of the owners. He married me eventually – now four years ago. So, you see: the manager of Diana became the wife of its owner.”As Christine got up, she added as a throw-away line, “Not very exciting, Ben, is it, compared to your life? But I have a surprise for you.”Reaching for the phone on her desk, she pressed a button. When it was answered, Christine just said, “Could you come to the office, please?” She listened for a moment before cutting the other party off with a brisk, “No! Right now. It’s important.”Ben read Christine’s smile as apologetic, as she said, “Sometimes, you just have to show your staff who is boss.”The woman who entered the office a minute or so after was, like Christine, also beautiful. Wearing the same outfit as Christine – black, hip-hugging trousers and a bone-coloured blouse – she was not as tall as the latter. Also, a blonde, her hair was a shade darker and left longer. Her alluring figure, womanlier in hips and bosom than Christine’s, was firm and enticingly proportioned.On stepping into the office, she gave Ben a sideways glance. Confronting Christine, she asked, “What is so urgent now?”Christine smiled, reached for a key-card, gave it to her, and, very business-like, said, “Erika, could you please take Doctor Hofer to his room. It’s four-o-three.”Erika turned to dumbfounded Ben. She gave him an appraising look which then slowly turned into an open-mouth stare of amazement, “God, it’s you, Ben! What brought you here? I can’t believe it, seeing you again after all these years!”