I had thought I was going to get to see my husband in a purple mini. No, he’s not a cross-dresser. Mini Cooper. We test-drove a few and they were cute and fun. But unless we got the Clubman stretch model, my kids were squished in the back seat. I can’t imagine a road trip with even more whining (“Mom, Luke keeps sticking his knee in my ear. Oh, wait, that’s my knee.”) And unless we got the turbo sport model, it drove like a tin can on casters.
So we drove a BMW 120 series, and although it had way more oomph and a bit more backseat space, the funky rounded ergonomically-correct seats made the car seats sit at an angle facing each other. Now we had two kids with feet touching and, well, you know how that would go over.
I wonder what kind of car we’d have bought if we had no children? Something with only two seats, no doubt.
But we finally found a winner. It’s big enough to be a family car without being nerdy or boxy. It’s dependable, safe, fuel efficient and cool enough to get us through the inevitable mid-life crisis that will be upon us before long.
We are now the proud parents of a bouncy Monaco Blue BMW 335i! Its due date is in two weeks. I can’t wait to hold it, stroke it, to hear its first sounds. I can’t wait to smell that clean scent of a Bimmer fresh from the bath. I sure wish Grandma lived close enough to visit.
But this baby will rarely use a child safety seat. No, the 335 will be Dave’s commuter car. I will keep the 1995 Mitsubishi Galant for my occasional errands that are not within walking distance. It’s old and beat up, but it has been a dependable car and it still gets really good gas mileage. We’ll use his car for long trips, maybe, and perhaps occasionally on weekends. But I have to declare this publicly so that we will stick to it: THERE WILL BE NO EATING IN THE BMW! As it stands now, you could feed a family of twelve for a week on the fries and gummi bears found between the seats of the Mitsubishi.
I’m really excited for Dave to have a great new car. He has worked so hard for so long, and I think he deserves to have a big reward. And I’m even more thrilled that now we each have transportation when we need it. I’m so tired of doing the one-car tango and being house-bound.
Now, I have to admit that there is one major drawback to owning a BMW. We live in a neighborhood full of Mercedes employees. My American neighbor, the one who had told me that our old Galant was “bringing the neighborhood down” now warns me that our BMW will “get us excommunicated in this neighborhood.” This is from a man who himself owns a “Bay Em Vay” (as the locals call it), but who reminds me that he had his before he moved here so he is exempt from criticism. My reply to all of that is easy. When Mercedes starts offering decent deals through the American military sales folks, or when our Mercedes friends are able to offer us a discount, then we’ll talk. In the meantime, we have a killer new baby that we were able to pay a good price for in dollars (which is how we get paid). And anyway, our Mercedes friends are nice. I don’t think they’ll slash our tires. They won’t have a chance. When this baby isn’t on the autobahn, she’ll be safely tucked in the garage each night.
P.S. A little trivia for you. Do you know why it is called a “Bimmer” and not a “Beamer” or a “Beemer”? It’s because Beamer is slang for a BMW motorbike. Bimmer is the car. I’m sure people get confused because new BMW owners “beam” when first get behind the wheel. So there. Ain’t I just a well of useless knowledge?
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Ich Spreche Deutsch Nicht So Gut
I have been working on my Deutsch when I can. It’s coming, but not fast enough. It’s in my personality to crave immediate gratification and perfection. I want to be able to cite long dramatic monologues, keep up with gossip and events in our village newspaper, and be able to scan through school notices without having to look up every third word.
So far I can order soup and find a loo when I need to. Hey, it’s a start. I’ve had to tape my dictionary together because I take it everywhere. I learn something new every day. But I am to the point that I really need some structure. I need a framework of grammar on which to hang all of my newfound trophy words.
The kids are learning too. They are adapting to German schools far better than I had imagined they would. They are plenty smart. It’s just that it’s my job as their mom to worry about how they will cope with being the outsiders at school, left out of jokes and conversations. I worry that they will fall behind in German, and then in English. I worry about how they will fit in when they go back to America and realize that it doesn’t seem like their home anymore.
I remember that homeless feeling when I was a kid. We had returned from three years in Africa and I had to adapt to a Texas junior high school. I didn’t know what MTV or Nike shoes were. I didn’t fit neatly into a labeled category (Jock? Popular? Nerd? Old money? Ah, yeah, Band Geek.). I was just that weird kid with the accent. If I talked about Africa, it was considered bragging. So I learned not to mention the most formative three years of my life so that I wouldn’t stick out and be rejected. It was hell. But I digress.
Anyway, my kids are not me. I do my best to hide my anxieties, to not hand them my baggage. They seem happy and confident. They have each handled a bully successfully. A boy at the kindergarten tried to flush Luke’s spare clothes down the toilet. Luke said that instead of telling the teacher, he told the boy to stop and he did. I was proud. But I do wish he’d talk to the teachers more. He says that when they talk to him and he doesn’t understand he just says, “Okay” and walks away.
The bully at Claire’s school was a little girl who helped her draw a rainbow mural on her desk and told her that it was allowed. When Claire got in trouble the girl just laughed. Claire cleaned the desk (it took a long time) and I helped her to write a long letter of apology to her teacher in German. Since then she says she is polite to the girl but that she doesn’t interact with her. And best of all, she didn’t let it spoil her positive attitude about the school. She is still on the trial period where she goes only twice a week until summer break. But she has made friends with some sweet girls with whom she walks to school. Every time she comes home she has a new freunde buch (friendship book) to fill out. We’ve spent hours finding photos to paste in and translating the questions (What is your favorite book? What is your greatest wish?) and figuring out the answers in German. It’s a great way to get her to study.
Still, I worry. A month ago she told me that when she plays with a large group of kids who only speak German she feels “invisible.” I know exactly what she means. When I am not heard, not understood, I feel as if I am not seen either. I feel truly handicapped, as if I know what I want to say and where I want to go, but my limitations forbid it.
I imagine myself sounding really stupid when I speak German. It’s like when we watch “Jay Walking” on the Tonight Show where Leno asks people easy questions and they have no clue how to answer. Dave and I make fun of the stupid people, especially the teachers, who can’t even name our first president or find Africa on a map. But now when Germans ask me questions and I try to answer auf Deutsch, I imagine a big camera in my face broadcasting my broken, idiotic reply. And I imagine someone sitting on a couch, thinking, “Lord, that stupid lady needs to just go back to America…”
I hate feeling ignorant. I know that I’m a smart girl, but when I can’t get my ideas across, I may as well be an idiot. I wonder how anyone could possibly want to befriend me if they don’t understand my stories, my witticisms, my feelings? But come to think of it, maybe it's a good thing to learn to keep my mouth shut and listen for a change.
I do feel incredibly guilty when my German friends who speak good English have to speak my language to me instead of my speaking theirs. They are sweet about it, but in the back of my head I hear echoes of a few narrow-minded old men back home saying awful things like, “Those damn foreigners come to our country, and if they can’t speak our language they need to go home!” I always hated that attitude, but it embarrasses me that now I am one of those “damn foreigners”. I want to show respect for my host nation, to connect and make lifelong friends here. My worst fear is being branded “Ugly American.” Adapting is just a lot of work sometimes.
I try to teach my kids that ignorance is only a crime if you aren’t willing to correct it. I try to give them permission to make mistakes in the name of learning. I’m just struggling to practice what I teach. After all, there are plenty of days when I feel as though I am discovering clues and pieces to a magnificent puzzle each time I understand a new word in context. I just have to give myself a little grace while I learn this very hard language. (Lord, grant me patience, and hurry up about it!)
I think that the key for me is making some wonderful German friends. Ruth, a mom from the kindergarten, has invited us over for a barbecue. Our neighbor Zilka has had me over for coffee. We moms stand around and watch our kids play on our street. And Steffi has even invited me to join her bunko group. I had a blast on my first night. There were thirteen German women and me. Some spoke English with me, but mostly they spoke German. After a couple of glasses of wine my German was better (or at least I thought so). And by the end of the evening I was even understanding most of the jokes. I need to have more times like that where I can observe and interact in a friendly and forgiving environment where the stakes are low.
I just have to remember that this is a relatively short season in our family's history, that it is an opportunity to change our worldview and make lasting memories and friendships. And anyway, you just can’t beat the chocolate.
So far I can order soup and find a loo when I need to. Hey, it’s a start. I’ve had to tape my dictionary together because I take it everywhere. I learn something new every day. But I am to the point that I really need some structure. I need a framework of grammar on which to hang all of my newfound trophy words.
The kids are learning too. They are adapting to German schools far better than I had imagined they would. They are plenty smart. It’s just that it’s my job as their mom to worry about how they will cope with being the outsiders at school, left out of jokes and conversations. I worry that they will fall behind in German, and then in English. I worry about how they will fit in when they go back to America and realize that it doesn’t seem like their home anymore.
I remember that homeless feeling when I was a kid. We had returned from three years in Africa and I had to adapt to a Texas junior high school. I didn’t know what MTV or Nike shoes were. I didn’t fit neatly into a labeled category (Jock? Popular? Nerd? Old money? Ah, yeah, Band Geek.). I was just that weird kid with the accent. If I talked about Africa, it was considered bragging. So I learned not to mention the most formative three years of my life so that I wouldn’t stick out and be rejected. It was hell. But I digress.
Anyway, my kids are not me. I do my best to hide my anxieties, to not hand them my baggage. They seem happy and confident. They have each handled a bully successfully. A boy at the kindergarten tried to flush Luke’s spare clothes down the toilet. Luke said that instead of telling the teacher, he told the boy to stop and he did. I was proud. But I do wish he’d talk to the teachers more. He says that when they talk to him and he doesn’t understand he just says, “Okay” and walks away.
The bully at Claire’s school was a little girl who helped her draw a rainbow mural on her desk and told her that it was allowed. When Claire got in trouble the girl just laughed. Claire cleaned the desk (it took a long time) and I helped her to write a long letter of apology to her teacher in German. Since then she says she is polite to the girl but that she doesn’t interact with her. And best of all, she didn’t let it spoil her positive attitude about the school. She is still on the trial period where she goes only twice a week until summer break. But she has made friends with some sweet girls with whom she walks to school. Every time she comes home she has a new freunde buch (friendship book) to fill out. We’ve spent hours finding photos to paste in and translating the questions (What is your favorite book? What is your greatest wish?) and figuring out the answers in German. It’s a great way to get her to study.
Still, I worry. A month ago she told me that when she plays with a large group of kids who only speak German she feels “invisible.” I know exactly what she means. When I am not heard, not understood, I feel as if I am not seen either. I feel truly handicapped, as if I know what I want to say and where I want to go, but my limitations forbid it.
I imagine myself sounding really stupid when I speak German. It’s like when we watch “Jay Walking” on the Tonight Show where Leno asks people easy questions and they have no clue how to answer. Dave and I make fun of the stupid people, especially the teachers, who can’t even name our first president or find Africa on a map. But now when Germans ask me questions and I try to answer auf Deutsch, I imagine a big camera in my face broadcasting my broken, idiotic reply. And I imagine someone sitting on a couch, thinking, “Lord, that stupid lady needs to just go back to America…”
I hate feeling ignorant. I know that I’m a smart girl, but when I can’t get my ideas across, I may as well be an idiot. I wonder how anyone could possibly want to befriend me if they don’t understand my stories, my witticisms, my feelings? But come to think of it, maybe it's a good thing to learn to keep my mouth shut and listen for a change.
I do feel incredibly guilty when my German friends who speak good English have to speak my language to me instead of my speaking theirs. They are sweet about it, but in the back of my head I hear echoes of a few narrow-minded old men back home saying awful things like, “Those damn foreigners come to our country, and if they can’t speak our language they need to go home!” I always hated that attitude, but it embarrasses me that now I am one of those “damn foreigners”. I want to show respect for my host nation, to connect and make lifelong friends here. My worst fear is being branded “Ugly American.” Adapting is just a lot of work sometimes.
I try to teach my kids that ignorance is only a crime if you aren’t willing to correct it. I try to give them permission to make mistakes in the name of learning. I’m just struggling to practice what I teach. After all, there are plenty of days when I feel as though I am discovering clues and pieces to a magnificent puzzle each time I understand a new word in context. I just have to give myself a little grace while I learn this very hard language. (Lord, grant me patience, and hurry up about it!)
I think that the key for me is making some wonderful German friends. Ruth, a mom from the kindergarten, has invited us over for a barbecue. Our neighbor Zilka has had me over for coffee. We moms stand around and watch our kids play on our street. And Steffi has even invited me to join her bunko group. I had a blast on my first night. There were thirteen German women and me. Some spoke English with me, but mostly they spoke German. After a couple of glasses of wine my German was better (or at least I thought so). And by the end of the evening I was even understanding most of the jokes. I need to have more times like that where I can observe and interact in a friendly and forgiving environment where the stakes are low.
I just have to remember that this is a relatively short season in our family's history, that it is an opportunity to change our worldview and make lasting memories and friendships. And anyway, you just can’t beat the chocolate.
I Just Want To Celebrate
Last weekend we attended three outdoor events. The first was the Fourth of July festival on Patch Barracks. It wasn’t particularly ambitious, well-attended or fun. And even though I love German food, I was disappointed to see only wursts there and no traditional Independence Day hamburgers or hot dogs. Luke and I were home asleep before fireworks, but Dave and Claire snuggled on a blanket and enjoyed a good show.
The next day we attended a 4-km hike and picnic with Luke’s kindergarten. That was fun except that I mis-translated the announcement and thought we were supposed to bring tongs and meat to put on a grill. Instead, we were to bring knives to carve long sticks to cook meat over a campfire. Oops. Chicken legs don’t cook well on twigs, so we just ate salad and bread. No big deal. The kids really enjoyed the playground that they had. There was no bathroom, which was interesting with 100 little kids.
The next day we had the Katherinenfest at St. Kat’s Church in Stuttgart. It was a mixed gathering with our English-speaking Anglican congregation and the Old Catholic German congregation. I had made an awesome buttermilk chocolate cake, the kind that my Mississippi grandmother might have taken to our little white clapboard Methodist church in the woods back home. I knew that it wouldn’t be like an old-timey Southern church social, but part of me really hoped it would feel like one.
The church service was bilingual, and it was great that we had a written translation of the sermon. We were told the kids “just had to” go to the children’s service during the sermon, but it ended up just being a table with crayons. After church we went out and bought tickets to buy food, which consisted of catered German wursts and potato salad. There was really no place to sit. Because a king years ago gave the church land for its building and not the surrounding grounds, the church had to rent its own lawn from the city. There was so much dog poop (like in France) on the grounds that we couldn’t find a place to put our picnic blanket. We tried to put it on the sidewalk, but we were told it was a public pathway. There were a few tables, but not nearly enough. So we had to balance our glass plates and cups and try to eat that way. When it came time for dessert and coffee, we had to buy that too. So I had to buy a piece of my own cake to see if it came out okay. I’d much rather have made a flat donation up front and been done with it, but that’s not the way it works here. Oh, and did I mention that it poured rain? I did not feel very warm and fuzzy about the whole experience.
Next year I think we will go away for July 4th weekend like all of our American friends did. If we’re not going to be in America for the 4th of July, it really doesn’t matter where we are.
The next day we attended a 4-km hike and picnic with Luke’s kindergarten. That was fun except that I mis-translated the announcement and thought we were supposed to bring tongs and meat to put on a grill. Instead, we were to bring knives to carve long sticks to cook meat over a campfire. Oops. Chicken legs don’t cook well on twigs, so we just ate salad and bread. No big deal. The kids really enjoyed the playground that they had. There was no bathroom, which was interesting with 100 little kids.
The next day we had the Katherinenfest at St. Kat’s Church in Stuttgart. It was a mixed gathering with our English-speaking Anglican congregation and the Old Catholic German congregation. I had made an awesome buttermilk chocolate cake, the kind that my Mississippi grandmother might have taken to our little white clapboard Methodist church in the woods back home. I knew that it wouldn’t be like an old-timey Southern church social, but part of me really hoped it would feel like one.
The church service was bilingual, and it was great that we had a written translation of the sermon. We were told the kids “just had to” go to the children’s service during the sermon, but it ended up just being a table with crayons. After church we went out and bought tickets to buy food, which consisted of catered German wursts and potato salad. There was really no place to sit. Because a king years ago gave the church land for its building and not the surrounding grounds, the church had to rent its own lawn from the city. There was so much dog poop (like in France) on the grounds that we couldn’t find a place to put our picnic blanket. We tried to put it on the sidewalk, but we were told it was a public pathway. There were a few tables, but not nearly enough. So we had to balance our glass plates and cups and try to eat that way. When it came time for dessert and coffee, we had to buy that too. So I had to buy a piece of my own cake to see if it came out okay. I’d much rather have made a flat donation up front and been done with it, but that’s not the way it works here. Oh, and did I mention that it poured rain? I did not feel very warm and fuzzy about the whole experience.
Next year I think we will go away for July 4th weekend like all of our American friends did. If we’re not going to be in America for the 4th of July, it really doesn’t matter where we are.
Homesick Blues
We’ve been in Germany for 18 weeks now, and although I love it, I’m feeling sharp pangs of homesickness. I’ve missed family and friends all of this time. I’ve wished I could share every new experience with them, call to chat when I have a moment alone (which is when everyone back home is sleeping), or just put on a big pot of gumbo to share. But these feelings are especially acute since we discovered we can’t make it home this summer. Rather than pay $1000 per ticket, we are waiting until Christmas when we have less travel time but can use frequent flyer miles. Makes me wish I knew more German swear words.
Life carries on back home in the U.S. A.. Cousins marry. Parents have birthdays. Relatives have reunions. People are living in our Colorado house. And yet here we are, still trying to figure out life in our new home. In a way it feels like we’ve been on a wonderful vacation, playing house and stepping out of our routine for a while. As with every vacation, there comes a time when you’re just ready to go home, catch up on the mail, reconnect with friends, and get your life back in order. The problem is, we’re already home. It just doesn’t feel like it yet. I keep thinking that one day I'll wake up and feel completely comfortable and settled. One day.
Life carries on back home in the U.S. A.. Cousins marry. Parents have birthdays. Relatives have reunions. People are living in our Colorado house. And yet here we are, still trying to figure out life in our new home. In a way it feels like we’ve been on a wonderful vacation, playing house and stepping out of our routine for a while. As with every vacation, there comes a time when you’re just ready to go home, catch up on the mail, reconnect with friends, and get your life back in order. The problem is, we’re already home. It just doesn’t feel like it yet. I keep thinking that one day I'll wake up and feel completely comfortable and settled. One day.
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