Lamy AL-Star Coffee (m)

First, let me say I'm sorry for not blogging during this last week. A pretty bad case of the flu made both me and my fiancé lay around and quietly suffer most of the week. So much for a great birthday. And it was the big 3-0, too! :(
Anyway, there was something very special about my b-day and that was my significant other finally acknowledging the fact that giving me a fountain pen is better than pretty much any other gift.

So here it is, my newest addition to the Lamy family: The Lamy AL-Star coffee with a medium nib.
He even got me a very nice box:

But let's start at the beginning:
I got my first Lamy when I started elementary school. It was a Lamy abc and I still own it. In Germany kids learn to write with a fountain pen at a very early age, which I personally think is great because it makes the handwriting look so much better. Which is also one of the reasons why I still love to use a fountain pen.
When I started secondary school, my parents bought a white Lamy Safari for me. I still own this one as well (isn't that great value? The Safari nowadays costs about 18€ and my oldest one is 20 years old and still does its job!).
The Safari really did it for me. Over the years I bought more colors, black, blue, red and vista from my pocket money. During the last couple of years two Lamy nexx, a new white one, an aquamarine one and a silverblue AL-star joined my collection.

Enter AL-Star coffee

I love this pen. What's great about all Lamys is that you only have to put in the cartridge and you can almost immediately start writing. The pen is comfortable to hold, even with the weird way I weave my fingers around pens. The ink flow is smooth and even and the AL-Star has that cool aluminum feeling to it. I personally enjoy the medium nib most, although I have some broad and some fine nibbed (is that even a word?!) Lamys and also some extra nibs to switch around, because every once in a while I might just enjoy the fine nib better for a short period of time. Changing the nib is quite easy on the Lamy, too, which is another reason to love it!

So, what's special about the AL-Star coffee? Well, all of the above PLUS the color. I think it's more of a chocolatey than a coffee brown, but since I like both coffee and chocolate that's fine by me. The brown looks very sophisticated (as sophisticated as a Lamy AL-Star can get, that is) and I like that it goes well with my Filofax Holborn Zip in Wine (the replacement, by the way, arrived back home on my birthday, too!). So now I have an AL-Star to go with my Ultra Violet Domino (the silverblue one) and one to be put into my Holborn.
There's just one tiny little thing I am sad about: it does not fit into the pen loop of the Holborn. But that really isn't the Lamy's fault ;).

PS: I see another AL-Star joining my collection in the near future: The ruby is coming to Germany this year. I had already looked into buying it online as it was only available in the States so far, but I couldn't yet get myself to spend 35$ or more plus shipping and handling (and customs) when the fountain pen costs 24€ in Germany!