Hello Everyone 9/24/02

Hello Everyone,
 
I'm sitting on my terrace waiting for the rain that's been looming all day.  But I need you to know, especially those of you who think I may be whining in these missives (What? can't you recognize wry observation?) that I have lowered my expectations and instead of being disappointed when the days aren't sunny, I now wake up delighted when it's only gray.  And it could be worse, we could be in Dresden which apparently is undergoing its second
great destruction
 
Today I attempted my first attempt at baking, a fiasco.  A friend took me to the grocery and tried to explain the differences in German flours and
ingredients.  You can't, for example, find brown sugar, and baking soda, I'm told, only makes an appearance at Christmas.   But I gamely bought a bag of #405 flour (they number them, like Levis) and some Flocken (oats) and a chocolate bar to chop up (no chips) and decided the time was nigh to do a
batch of cookies.
 
You may recall my description of our kitchen as being the size of an American closet, not necessarily walk in, with less than two feet of counter space and one electrical outlet. This means my prep space is the  stovetop, which fortunately has one of those flat ceramic surfaces.  I believe I've written some of you about how to make breakfast I bring the coffee pot from the storage room, set it on the stovetop, drop in the filter, brew the coffee, pour the coffee, clean the coffee pot, return it to the storage room, bring in the toaster, cut the bread (the good ones you can't get sliced) make the toast, take the toaster back to the storage room, etc.
 
Well, making cookies entails an even more rigorous aerobic routine with the mixmaster, etc.  Plus, since the oven is preheating below me, leaking heat
everywhere (maybe the Germans only export their superior mechanical goods) I'm feeling particularly toasty, quite a delight when the ambient humidity
is 99% or so. But I persevere, make the batter, drop dollops of it on a baking sheet (there's only one oven rack so multiple batches are out of the question) and set the timer I wisely thought to bring; there are no built-ins on this stove, definitely nothing digital--even all but the  more expensive appliances have turn dials circa 1970 in the States.
 
Ding ding, or kling kling, (as the bells ring in my German exercise book).  I open the oven and see one solid sheet of runny dough. And of course, there's no
counter to cool it on, and I apparently forgot to bring a cooling rack (I tried to pare stuff to essentials) so I tear up a Newsweek  and put it on
the wire patio furniture in lieu of  a cooling rack.  But the dough is hopeless so  I dump it over the terrace (my secret recycling place--you're
supposed to separate "bio," but where the hell am I going to keep organic
waste for its once-a-month pickup?  OK, the secret of success is perseverance. This time I try more baking soda and a touch of powder. Kling kling. I take this new batch to the terrace, lay it on an article about
Apocalyptic literature (the first batch dried on a photo essay about Palestinian resentments--hopefully printing ink isn't leeching into the cookies).
 
Turns out this batch is a little more solid but much of it goes over the terrace, too, albeit in a different direction; we're compiling too much evidence. A couple days ago I tried disposing of dead sunflowers using the same method and one got stuck in a tree where it taunts me daily. Hopefully none of my neighbors see it; they really can turn you into the garbage police for doing something like that. According to my German neighbor, people go through the trash looking for offenders and ordinary
citizens can be "deputized" to give recycling offense tickets.
 
Anyway, for batch three--I am nothing if not determined--I try more oatmeal which gives  bulk, but that's about it.  Dayenu.  Without a doubt I have
just gone from being one of Toledo's largest non-commercial purchasers of butter, eggs, flour and sugar to shopping in Bonn's packaged food aisles.
 
Most afternoons, though, I spend my time trying to figure out the German language and/or wondering if I'm spending too much time trying to figure out
the German language. I am probably the least adept person in my language class, possibly because in English you don't have to know if your article or
pronoun is masculine, feminine or neutral.  Even the French and Spanish speakers find German tough going, but for me, and I love words and love making connections, it's a tongue twisting battle.  But the other day at the grocery I could read the sign saying that the store was looking for new workers,  and in the parking lot I could translate the billboard that asked people to Give Blood , and it was like, whoa, man, I might one day Get It.
 
So little by little I am learning to interpret my environment.  Last Sunday, for example, I learned that you should expect anything a German says to be
taken literally.  (OK, I'm speaking broadly--surely there are SOME Germans to whom this does not apply.  But I think they're the ones who've moved
abroad.)
 
A colleague of the hub's--a guy who used to be on the German National Cycling Team--offered to show us some biking and hiking paths.  We won't go far, he said, only 16, 18 km.  I was sure this was a joke.  Later, after a mile straight uphill, he took out a map.  Here we are, he said indicating that we'd moved an inch or two from our starting point.  Where are we going, I asked.  Oh, it's off the map, he said.  I smiled at his sense of humor.  Four hours later I was smiling less.  Who in their right mind would tramp 10 miles if they weren't collecting money for multiple sclerosis or training for a marathon?  My strong gut is that in the planning of this walk, the translation of the word "some" was misinterpreted between the hub and his co-worker. It's amazing how important adjectives and adverbs can be to a life.
 
Anyway, I try to assimilate.  This coming Friday, in a bout of enthusiasm no doubt inspired by a glimmer of sunlight after class let out this morning, I
invited an Iranian and a Mexican and their significant others--none of whom have English as a first language--over for dessert.  Probably this will not be my most successful entertaining event, from either a culinary or conversational standpoint. What was I thinking?
 
Liz continues to do fine, though she's disappointed in her school situation. In another example of Shoverian timing, the International School she attends was just this year relocated to a temporary (read: yucky) structure while the administration awaits an infusion of funds to build a new facility. Ironically, she misses her OH friends more since classes began.  We're DEFINITELY going back in a year, she said today, the first time she's made
such a statement.  I was actually thinking I could handle more since I expect this whole first year to be a lesson in frustration and anticipate that the lightbulb-in-the-head cultural payoff won't come until later. First person: The food here is so bad.  Second person: Yes, and the portions are so small.  Kind of like even though life here will probably be uncomfortable for a long time, you (I) should kick yourself in the head longer until you don't realize it.
 
While you're trying to figure out the logic of that, I'm gonna run and clean up the disaster that is my post-baking kitchen,  Oh, have I mentioned this?
They don't much believe in bags here, let alone twisties. (When you get fruit at the Markt, it's delivered in paper cones. When you shop for groceries, you bring your own sacks (and bag your own goods--quickly, the next customer's are bearing down). It's all very quaint, possibly ecologically sound, but seriously impractical. You can't believe how I long to hear the words Paper or Plastic?
 
I think of most you daily.  Keep them emails coming.
 
Best,
 
Barb
 

Hello Everyone 9/9/2002

Hello Everyone,
 
I'm in a bit more somber mood as I start this.  Plus it's 2:30 AM.  Over the past several hours I've popped two sleeping tabs, but they've had the opposite effect.  Now in addition to plain not sleeping I'm not sleeping and itching like a maniac.  Liz started the book The Metamorphisis in her English class today, Gregor Samsa waking to find himself a large bug and all that.  I feel instead that I will never sleep cause I've been bitten by one.
 
In truth, it probably wasn't a bug, but rather a large pot of strong coffee I drank in the market square a couple hours ago. I thought I'd asked for a small frothed milk drink, but like most of the refreshments I order in restaurants, I was mistaken.  And since the deep dark coffee cost (euro sign) 3.80 a portion, I drank it all down.  More than in the States, I feel compelled to use everything to the last drop here, the rotting berries I eat since I don't want to throw them over the balcony, the shirt I wear an extra day since doing laundry is such a pain. I won't tell you how infrequently I change bed linens since it takes six hours to wash and dry a bed's worth. (But if you visit, I'll make the effort.)

Anyway, the reason I was drinking coffee so late is cause it's Rosh Hashona and the Temple thing hadn't worked out like we expected.  Actually, until a couple days ago we didn't even remember the High Holidays were approaching, and when we did I decided to blow them off.  But then I realized I hadn't met a single Jewish person in my two months in Germany and wondered who the Jewish population might include. I'd passed Tempelstrasse several times, good real estate near the river, and remembered how each time I'd moved to a new town and visited the synagogue people were welcoming.  Plus, I figured for the most part Jews tend to be well educated, so certainly there will be English speakers among them. I couldn't find a number in the phone book, but the hub's secretary made some calls and learned that the evening service started at 7 PM.
 
The Temple, when we walked inside, was a pretty shabby place and of the several dozen individuals hanging around, none spoke English and in fact, few were speaking German.  It turns out most of the con-gregation is Russian, refugees no doubt.  At 7:15, eight dowdy middle aged women and one ancient man went up on the bimah with an accordionist and started singing folk songs, few of which I recognized.  The rest of the small sanctuary was filled with similarly dressed older people. (I chided myself for having personal grooming thoughts on Rosh Hashona, but in Toledo it seems that's the day to show off your latest upscale mall purchase.  Ah, this is what real religion is about, I thought, forcing those materialists thoughts out, the simple happiness of having the right to celebrate your faith.  But that's probably wrong, too.  Life is rarely that simplistic.) 
 
Anyway, no one returned our goofy nods of hello or L'shona Tovah and we were embarrassed trying to communicate further.  So we sat through the folk act, which we learned later was the pre-show--the real service didn't start till sundown. We heard that when we started filing out--again with no acknowledgment --and found ourselves next to a man who turned out to be a former Ohio opera student who'd landed a gig in several Bonn Wagner and Weill productions.  Mark, was excited to find other Americans, told us he had a new bride who was home with a kugel in the oven.  I expected this meant she was pregnant and offered my congratulations, but it turned out she was making a noodle pudding, the statement was meant to be taken literally. (Mark's lived in Germany six years, long enough to go native and unironic. But he generously offered to have Marianne share her German recipes with me--it's impossible to adapt American Rezepte, he said, which may have been the problem in my last mailing.) Anyway, since we now had a guide to the service, we decided to stay.  But I was shunted to the ladies section upstairs where there were no seats and no one would make room for me, so the two of us left quietly and began walking down the Rhine. It was a lovely night. The weather, I should report has changed again--it's still dry, but the leaves are falling and the ivy sided old houses are turning red.
 
Anyway, two pinched feet later (I was wearing "good" shoes after a summer in faux Birkies(from the word "birch," if turns out) we made it to the Altstadt and the café and the too strong, too expensive coffees.  It was one of those archetypal European scenes of students and lovers. Still I had this fleeting realization that none of the students and lovers would turn out to be Jewish--not that that's anything I'd thought or cared about before, but here it's one more level of isolation. In America, or at least my part of it, everyone knows what Rosh Hashona IS even if they don't practice. And with the German norm of dozens of Arab markets, and no Jews, it makes recent news events more disturbing.  But then that thought was partially dispelled, too: the cafe menu offered a Frühstuck (breakfast) of bagel with lox.  Probably not what we would call a bagel, more likely one of the round breads they refer to here as Sesamring, but geez, something that at least Woody Allen could describe as Jewish. 
 
I've been thinking a lot about the Muslim-Jewish thing these days and particularly as September 11 approaches--thank heaven, by dint of the fact that our TV only gets European stations, we're not subjected to the overkill I hear is SOP in the States. There's a guy from Tehran in my German class whom I've become friendly with.  Once I asked him what it was like to live in Iran; the stories we get in America make it seem so oppressive, I said. (I did not remind him of his role in the Axis of Evil.) He replied that even what HE saw on television was not his country, it was the country of the leaders, but not the people.  Sometimes I feel that's where the US is headed, too as perceived by others.  I wonder if the administration and the general populace are in the same place ideologically or if Europe (and other parts of the so-called global community) are confusing America with its leaders.
 
Living here makes one aware of the anti-American sentiment that is growing around the world. I don't get this directly from people I talk with, at the most they fault Bush, not Americans in general, and make ambivalent remarks about their own countries' leaders.  But we subscribe to International Newsweek--a whole different pub from what you get in the States--and 95% of the letters to the editor chide America for her unilateralism or scold Israel for her treatment of the Palestinians.  Although I've often been skeptical of  many of America's policies and attitudes toward the rest of the world, reading venom from around that world--in an allegedly balanced magazine--is frightening.  Another truism from Woody Allen: If I say it, it's OK; if they say it, it's not. I fear we've squandered the goodwill of the rest of the world--and I think there was tremendous goodwill after September 11 last year--by our arrogance toward the environment, land mines, trade tariffs, stiffing the UN, not adhering to world court judgments, etc.
 
Further, I think the terrorists, individuals or states, must be gleeful about this; America is now in the eyes of much of the rest of the world, as much the bad guy as they are.  My gut is that while European sites were targeted in the past, we won't see that again soon, because the terrorists feel that to maintain European disgust at the States, they must refrain from biting the hand that serendipitously played their card. When we learned we were moving abroad, I was scared of potential terror attacks, but now that fear has diminished. The US will eventually need to take action, in my opinion, about terrorism, but this issue has been folded into the Palestinian/Israeli discord in much of the world's eyes, and on that issue, the world dresses Israel in the black hat. (Mind you, speaking of headgear, there are tons of hajibed women in Europe, and once the critical mass threatens to tip the status quo, the tables I expect will turn again. Europe doesn't want to be Muslimized--ie, outbred--with its threats of insurrection and violence, anymore than Israel; it's just that the numbers are still smaller and there's Germany's history of former oppressions to consider.  One irony to this, I think, is that Al Queda/terrorism/Iraq have morphed to the greater world with Palestinian issues.  So Sharon's tourist trip to the Temple Mount two years back probably did as much to foment Europe's distrust of America as Bush's policies.
 
OK, end of geopolitical carp.  I expect many rabbis in America have similar themes this week so forgive me for trading a pulpit for an email. But you can't live here and be oblivious to how differently Europeans and Americans view the world.  And while stuff can change on a dime, I think this is a fair representation of today's reality.  I vacillate between wanting to write Newsweek a scathing rebuttal and saying, yeah, you've got a point. Even though I always followed the international presses in America, over here the rhetoric is notched higher.
 
Well, I'm tired now (it's 4:30) so I'm going to try bed again. I hope you all get 9/11 II closure (ha!) as it appears from the media that's the intention.  At the risk of offending the HR people at the hub's former Michigan headquarters, I just pulled up an email outlining how the office is commemorating September 11.  After several introductory paragraphs concerning displaying the flag and receiving commemorative pins upon entrance to the room where the television will be playing, one reads these sentences:  "The event has been coordinated to occur at the exact moment the WTC events began, at around 8:46 AM (ET).  Free refreshments will be served."
 
Pins and pop to celebrate a tragedy.  No wonder the world doubts us.
 
Best (and I'll try to be funny again next time),
 
Barb

Hello Everyone 8/16/02

Hello Everyone--
 
I've had serious email problems here so a few of you may have received messages from me, and some of you may have replied, but there's a good chance most of you never got my mail or I never got yours.  It seems, Gott willing, this problem might be solved, though I've been burned writing that about technology before.
 

We've been abroad six weeks now and the weather has finally broken.  Yesterday and today are the first two days I haven't cursed the humidity, rain or grayness. This is, I read in the NYT (online) the rainiest year in Western Europe since 1890.  How truly Shoverian a travel experience.
 
Travel, I should say, there's been plenty of.  The hub has this thing about getting in the car, hitting the global positioning system and taking off. We drove 14 hours to Oslo in this way: ie, no map. By the way, the sky in Oslo at 2 on a summer morning look's exactly the way Munch portrayed it in The Scream. I know how he felt.
 
In addition to Scandinavia and Estonia, we also visited Amsterdam last weekend and were set to take off for Prague tomorrow (6 hours) until the weather report scared us off: the Charles Bridge, the famous crossing with all the statues is almost under water. To paraphrase Anna Karenina, all cities in the rain look alike while the sunny ones have distinct personalities. Rainy Day Stockholm is a lot like Rainy Day Copenhagen, Rainy Day Köln etc. (Note the umlaut. Cute computer trick if you can do it. German keyboards also have the y and q transposed and so far the only way I've figured out how to make an apostrophe is to type a double quote than erase the second--the possessive in German is denoted by a case (genitive), not simple punctuation.
 
Docent and book club pals: I was in a bookstore in Tallin, Estonia and saw the Taschen books you (docents) gave me as going away gifts.  They were about the only English language books available except for John Grisham novels.  Most of the books I find in English are mysteries, in the vernacular, Krimis. The Bad Godesberg (the area of Bonn we live in) library has about 100 well worn paperbacks of Hardy and Shakespeare and their ilk along with Rosamund Pilcher, so I'm going to have to start cruising Amazon.de.  The only problem is the instructions are in German; close but no cigar to the American pages:  Liz almost wound up ordering Death of a Salesman for $144--a signed copy somebody had put up for sale.
 
For info on how language lessons are coming, see the attached which may or may not make it into the Blade.  I kept myself from jumping off the nearest rain besmirched scenic outlook here (lotsa old castles and ruins) the first few weeks by writing, but as those of you who received emails may recall, my mood was kind of dark (and will probably re-noir itself when the humidity returns.  Every day here is a bad hair day.  If only I had the cheekbones, I'd go for the Hare Krishna look.)
 
There are many wonderful things about being in Europe. Actually, I should say Being in Germany because it will be a long time till I am able to make the distinction between what is European in general and what is German in specific.  Cobblestones, cathedrals, ruins and cafes are Euniversal, but in Germany homes and flats don't have built in closets or kitchens--you bring your own, down to the kitchen sink. Roads are smaller in general, bikes are common all over, but the Germans coddle their cars and the Autobahn is the only no speed highway I'm aware of. Germans also have more words for pork based products than Eskimos, according to legend, have for snow.
 
OK, let me think what the wonderful things are.  Well, this afternoon Liz and I biked to the Zentrum (Center) to the Kunstmuseum (Art)  to see the Alex Katz show.  (Eh. Might work if you had a huge contempo-home in Malibu or Nantucket) and then stopped at this nice little park on the Rhine to watch the ducks and geese and swans (and sit in their guano.)  And each day after my language lesson I pick up a different kind of bread or pastry or kilo of vegetables--you have to buy most by the kilo--last week I lived on green beans--at the Zentrum Markt (pigeons, tourists, Beethoven ate here).  Of course, by the time I bike home over 8 kilometers of aforesaid charming cobblestones, the pastries have smooshed into one other and the plums are bruised.
 
And yesterday Liz and I biked the other way down the Rhine and found a self serve sunflower place. We cut three stems, left 1,50 Euro in the can and biked back to the flat looking like natives. 
 
Of course, we're so not natives, it's glaring.  I find myself a tourist every place I go: I stand in front of the stalls in the Markt looking at the choices, feeling forced to buy something just because I've taken someone's time staring at their cheeses or olives (both good). I order more or less randomly at restaurants: (Gemüse, I now know, means vegetables). Food is priced about the same as in the States, but you buy things in much smaller quantities.  Eggs and sodas are sold singly.  Cookies come 12 to a package except Oreos which are $8 a pack. Consumer goods of all sorts--mayo, canned (actually cardboarded) tomato sauce, toilet paper, milk is/are a quarter or half the size you'd find in the States. This all makes sense considering refrigerators hold maybe 3 cubic feet of goods--I don't know if this is a German or European idiosyncrasy. There would be plenty of space for bigger appliances in most of the flats I've been in, but the convention is these Lilliputian numbers. I did (thankfully) bring a refrigerator from the States--due to electric outlet distribution we have to keep it in the dining room, but so be it. Due to the lack of closet space, our extra bedroom has been pressed into use as a storage cellar--I knew in advance this would be an issue so stocked up on Target shelving before the move.
 
I have also become used to the tiny three hours-to-do-a-load washing and drying machines. (First rule of doing laundry in Europe: wear lots of black.) Annoyingly, I also fried the computer printer and cordless telephones I brought.  After five weeks without telecommunications, when the consultants finally got the lines up I was so excited I forgot to first plug these appliances into their transformer.  What an idiot!  Though I talked to another pal in the States who did the expat thing a couple years ago and she said she did the same thing. Perhaps its just part of the initiation.
 
The art in Europe is great.  And everywhere.  The buildings are art, the little shrines that pop up on every corner qualify.  I was particularly impressed with the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Their van der Arsts, Claeszes, Hals and other OM's are fabulous. Still, I dare say, I'm arted out.  There is an excellent how-the-Greeks-influenced-everyone-else exhibit at the Bonn Kunstmuseum which Liz and I cruised in 15 minutes with glazed over eyes.  Terrific stuff, even an English language audio guide, but Overload had set in.
 
I am still pretty lonely.  I haven't met many people and don't know how to go about doing that.  And even meeting people doesn't mean you're going to be pals.  Liz starts school next week--sure, just as the weather clears--so maybe that will help, but for the past two months it's been Liz and me and hub, and that's a bit too closed a circle for my taste.  I mean, who can you gripe about your marriage and kid to when they're the only ones around?
 
I miss Elvis who is, finally going to live with my brother in Washington.  I wish he were here, but he would be an even more glaring misfit than we are.  The dogs I see on the Rhine Ufer are mostly small and fluffy, with an occasional retriever or Shepherd running thrown in for interest.  Most are remarkably well behaved.  There is a cocker spaniel that sleeps all day outside the building in the Markt square where I take German lessons; nothing fazes him (quite the opposite of Elvis).  Kids also seem better behaved.  At Legoland in Denmark (a hoot even if we were conspicuously too old to be there) all these little blond kids in natural fabrics exhibited immense patience waiting on lines--nothing like Cedar Point, etc.  People are quieter in general.  We were at an outdoor restaurant in a residential neighborhood last evening and at 10:30 the waiter asked us to move inside so we wouldn't disturb the neighbors.  Similarly, you're not allowed to wash your car on Sunday afternoons. (This must be a big concession for car-crazy Germans.)
 
Well, I could go on about other things--recycling is my pet peeve--you can be fined if the garbage patrol finds, say "bio" in with the "metal." Every single piece of paper is destined for recycling--credit card slips, napkins, newspapers--but there's only a pick-up once a month.  Considering the limited size of our kitchen and the fact that there are no closets, this makes for quite an interesting decorating scheme in our hallways.
 
But I better sign off before it rains again and I retreat to misery.  Frankly, if my internet is indeed working and if I hear from you guys (no pass-alongs, please) I should be fine. (Does it feel like I'm asking you to clap for Tinkerbell?) It's the isolation and dreariness of our flat that've been the real killers for me, and though emails aren't anywhere near as great as real over-a-coffee-or-beer contacts, they're a lot.
 
Hope you're all well.  Sorry for the mass mailingness of this, but I have written many of you personally only to find the letters never made it through.

Hello Everyone 8/11/02

Hello Everyone,
 
After several weeks of massive communications misunderstandings (if you think it's hard dealing with bureaucracy in America, try getting a phone installed in Germany) I've begun language lessons.  Let me describe my classmates.
 
There's an Iranian engineer who's a resident of France, and a Spanish lawyer taking her summer holiday in Bonn. We're joined by a Moroccan who needs to prove fluency to apply for German citizenship, as well as a Russian high schooler studying computer programming with the goal of working in "the West."
 
Our instructor is a young University student majoring in South American anthropology.  She tries to teach exclusively in German, but can't always get her points across.  The default language is English, my mother tongue, of course, and also understood, to some degrees, by the Iranian and the Russian.  The former translates into French for the Moroccan.  The Spaniard makes do with the words she knows of English and French, and a few our teacher knows in Spanish.
 
Things progress slowly.
 
Don't worry about language, I was told before we moved.  Everyone in Germany speaks English.  What would have been more accurate is that in Germany some people speak some English.  Mostly these are not the individuals I run into.
 
Still most folk here know more languages than those of us bred in the States. What do you call a person who speaks three languages?  Trilingual.  What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual.  What do you call a person who speaks one language?  American.
 
But if you're stuck with only a single language, English is the one to have.  Most international business is conducted in English, at least the narrative part of it.  The real down and dirty is done with numbers which are the same the world over.
 
The reality that English is indeed becoming the de facto universal language (anyone remember Esperanto?) became clearer when my husband, daughter and I traveled for a fortnight in Scandinavia.  In the course of several days we traversed territory where people spoke German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish. On a rainy day in grim post-Communist Estonia, we watched an original language version of Men in Black II with Cyrillic subtitles.
 
Estonia, a quick boat trip from Finland, is an aging jungle of Soviet architecture. But much of Scandinavia could be mistaken for pastoral Wisconsin or Minnesota. The people, the buildings and the fields look familiar. But then you notice that vowels on street signs and restaurant awnings have slashes through or dots above them.  And when you hear those words pronounced they sound nothing like the way you'd expect them to.  Not to mention that the people in Norway pronounce them way differently than the people in Denmark. Thank heaven many also know English
 
And it's true; in Europe lots of folk do know some English.  You can survive easily if all you need to do is find a toilet or order a baguette.  It's the more complex conversations, those you need to make a life, not just take a vacation, that cause consternation.  (And even for the blitzkrieg traveler, it's handy to know what that stuff ON the baguette is.)
 
Imagine what life might be like if Ohio spoke a different language from Illinois or Indiana. Add to that cafés, cathedrals, Roman ruins and cobblestones, and you're imagining Europe. As much as I want to learn German and enjoy my classes, the fact that my gargantuan effort will result in me being able to communicate more effectively only in an area the size of Texas seems ironic.  What if my husband's next transfer is to Italy or Belgium?
 
I wish, in some ways, that I was the type of arrogant expatriate who feels comfortable in her own insular environment. But that seems so impolite, plus I hate not knowing what's going on around me. I find myself apologizing for being ignorant of the native tongue while at the same time cursing this continent for being the Babel it is.
 
So I will continue language lessons until I feel comfortable.  Which will probably not happen before it's time to leave.  But I'm gaining confidence.
On the first day of class the five of us sat around the table staring down at our books and smiling shyly in the awkward gesture of non-comprehension. Now at least we Guten Morgen each other. Soon, I'm hopeful, we might go for a drink together.  It turns out the word for "coffee" is similar in all of our languages.
 

Hello Everyone 5/20/02

Hello Everyone,
 

When someone says "I'm moving," the action looks toward the future.  I'm moving someplace new.  I'm moving someplace different.  I'm moving on...up...out.  There's a sense of excitement and hope lodged in all but the most final of moves.  Even if where we're going's not better, at least the experience will broaden us, change our perspective, help us grow.

But to move someplace new also means to leave someplace old.  Old, to on-the-go Americans, has less upbeat connotations.  We've mastered the old, been there, done that. We may be sad to leave loved ones behind, but heck, they can come see us and broaden their horizons, too. This is an argument I've arrogantly adhered to, the superiority of the unexplored to the ordinary.
 
When I first learned that my husband had been offered a job in Germany, I couldn't believe our good fortune.  How many people get an opportunity like this? We bubbled. Friends were jealous.  What a chance! They said. Some people get all the luck.
 
And indeed, for several weeks the pinch-me sensation endured.  But then reality set in and the idea of moving began to look less like a grand adventure and more like a never ending stream of partings. Foremost on the list is leaving our home.
 
I'd like to say that a residence and the objects in it don't matter to me; that all we need is love, or experience.  But though that may have been true at 20, after 12 years between the same walls, my home is a major character in the narrative of my life.  I've painted and repainted walls; reupholstered couches to coordinate with changing shades of dog hair and grade school art projects. The kitchen holds the ghosts of meals prepared; the dining room walls are papered with conversations. The shelves have filled with books, the cabinets with pictures and mementos; the yard with the horticultural progeny of six hostas and three daylilies planted a decade ago.
 
Rationally I know it's only real estate; but emotionally there's something more personal in play.  It seems petty to attach so much importance to what in reality is Stuff, but I’ve spent weeks agonizing over the thought of someone brushing their teeth in my sink and sleeping in my bed.
 
Also remaining behind is our dog.  Hopefully the woman we've chosen to housesit will care for him well. Hopefully he won't do anything destructive or harmful on her watch. But he's an old dog with sometimes neurotic ways and leaving him in new hands makes me feel both nervous and guilty.
 
My daughter is leaving behind schoolmates. When you're 16 pals mean a lot.  Technology will make this less painful; email is a wonderful invention. But she's giving up a slot on her school newspaper, and due to a different curriculum in Europe she'll fall out of sequence on her college prep classes. I hope what we're giving her in experience will make up for what she loses in camaraderie and class ranking.
 
My husband's elderly father has Alzheimer's, and other medical conditions. There's an extremely good chance we'll never see him alive again.  My husband has made peace with this--his dad hasn't been Dad for several years--but there's still ambivalence about leaving in a time of affliction. I'm going to miss the holidays we share with his family and mine. Truth to tell, these are often less than Norman Rockwellish celebrations, but even dysfunctional tradition is tradition.
 
Then there are all the networks that will be severed. Friends, community, business.  Sure I should be able to pick up when we return. But who knows? Out of sight has been known to lead to out of mind.
 
And it's also goodbye to many conventions I've naively taken for granted:  knowing the rules of the road, the brands in the stores, the etiquette of daily life.  In America I've learned to read my environment like a well thumbed text.  I deduce meaning from people's expressions, possessions and inflections. I infer purpose from the materials, colors and qualities of inanimate objects. But these nonverbal cues are far from universal and I will need to learn to translate them through a set of different values and historical memories.
 
Then, of course, there's the language barrier.  Never again will I take conversation for granted, the fact that I'm writing this, and you're reading it, and both of us are construing more or less the same meaning from the same words.  In English I'm the master of my universe; in German I anticipate struggling to get a phone installed or make a doctor's appointment. For several months I've put myself through the paces of language tapes and manuals, but based on a recent house hunting trip it appears little of that lodged in my long term memory.  The Germans have a history of deep thinking, and there's nothing I like more than stimulating chitchat, but having spent fifteen minutes at the grocery trying to determine which cartons held milk, it's going to be ages, if ever, before I can participate in the culture.
 
There's also the convenience factor, something we Americans also take for granted.  Closets, I'm learning, are a national construct.  In our entire flat there's not a single closet, shelf, hutch, niche, cubby nor medicine cabinet. The refrigerator is the size of a TV--no wonder people shop every day. The washer takes three hours to do a load a third the size of an average American laundry basket--so that's why people wear black. The shower is 18 inches square--the real reason Europeans don't shave their legs? These affectations are charming in movies, but they're going to force me to change a bunch of behaviors I've grown fairly satisfied with.
 
Yes, of course I can do it.  And thrive.  Still the details of picking up one's live and depositing them on the other side of the ocean are overwhelming. I've always thought myself the type to choose adventure over complacency, but now that the proposition has gone from parlor game to book-the-movers, my intellect and emotions appear to be less in sync that I've boasted.  I'm glad to get the chance to move somewhere new, but never again will I look down on those who choose to stay put in comfortable lives.