A brush with Europe

I've never been to Europe. Not even close. So it was fun to have breakfast this morning with someone from the other side of the pond: Steffi Dobmeier, a German journalist who's been working in The Oregonian newsroom this summer as part of an international exchange program.

The Arthur F. Burns Fellowship seeks to develop reporters who are interested in and informed about U.S.-German and U.S.-European relations. Each summer, 10 reporters are selected from both Germany and the United States and placed in newsrooms in each other's country, where they produce work for their host news organization as well as their home audience.

Steffi, 32, hails from Erfurt, a city of about 200,000 in central Germany, and has been writing for her hometown newspaper since she was a teenager, beginning with contributions to the youth page. (Just like me, except that I started writing about high school sports.) Steffi's been working with our politics and business team, and I had the opportunity to edit a piece she wrote on the 20th anniversary of German reunification. It will appear in the Sunday Opinion section this weekend, in advance of the Oct. 3 ceremonies, and serve as a fitting end to her two-month stint in our newsroom.

We had breakfast at Mother's Bistro, a downtown institution. Steffi said the restaurant, with its comfortable interior and huge windows providing ample natural light, reminded her of France and that Portland, with its compact downtown and excellent public transportation, felt very much like a European city. I could only imagine what that might be like on both counts.

Lori and I hope to make it to Europe sometime in the next couple of years. By then, we'll have decided on which countries we want to see most. Leading contenders at the moment: Italy and Greece, though I'm lobbying for Ireland too.