Feeling like Hallo-wieners

Well, we’ve been busy around here. Dave is swamped at work, I’m busy with school and mothering and wifing, and the kids are busy being kids.

We finally got the Mini this week. We’re a little sad that it is not the Bimmer we had planned for, but it is adorable. And it gives us freedom that have missed the past seven months with only one car.

A couple of weekends ago we managed to get to Bavaria to Oberammergau. Dave and I had been there in 1997, but we thought the kids would love to see it. It is the quaint little old town in the hills where they perform an amazing outdoor passion play every ten years as a way to thank God from sparing them from the 1633 Bubonic Plague (which a teacher friend’s student in Texas once referred to in an essay as the “Bluebonnet Plaque”—but I digress). We want to go to the 41st performance in 2010 if we can still get tickets. They sell out early, even though the play is performed for five months while it is warm enough outside.

So anyway, we rented a small apartment for the weekend. We arrived at night in the pitch dark, so we couldn't see the area, but we could hear the cowbells coming from all directions. When we awoke the next day we were astounded by a breathtaking view of mountains, hills, and brilliantly colored changing leaves. It looked like God had spilled a bag of Skittles with all of the reds, oranges, yellows, greens and purples in the trees.

We spent our time hiking, taking a cable car to the top of a mountain, and visiting Schloss Linderhof, another one of Mad King Ludwig’s castles. It is a cool one, with plenty of ornate rooms, fabulous gardens, big fountains, play houses shaped like mosques and temples, and a secret grotto with a lake inside where the king would paddle around in a swan-shaped boat and play dress-up. Like Neuschwanstein, which we’ve not yet taken the kids to, its décor is based mostly on fairy tales and Wagnerian operas. It’s sort of like Disneyworld without the rides.

The following weekend we went to the Krauterfest (cabbage festival) in Echterdingen. That was fun. I’ve never eaten so much sauerkraut in my life. Awesome. The next weekend we strolled along the Neckar River in Tuebingen, taking in the relaxing views of willow trees hanging over the water as gondolas floated by. There we went to a jazz festival for kids in the city library, then let the kids jump in giant leaf piles in the park. I wish I had taken my camera. I’ve never seen such expressions of glee on my kids' faces.

So we’ve had some fun. Still, I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit that I’ve had to beat off some encroaching depression that threatened to pull me under this past month. I can’t really say what it was that had me so down. Maybe it was watching the warm summer slide past. Perhaps it was that my allergies have kicked in like they haven’t since I was a kid. Maybe it's a little homesickness. It could be worry about the upcoming presidential election. Or maybe I was just overwhelmed.

I realize how stupid it is that I set myself up for stress with ridiculously high expectations for myself. What else is new? This time it is about my language program.

I am working hard, and I feel like I am at the top of the heap in my class. But several neighbors have decided that I have until Christmas and then they will no longer speak English to me at all. It makes me feel lousy since I’ve not even been here eight months (most of which were spent getting settled and adjusted) and I’ve only been in a class for one month. The only German I knew before I came here was how to order a beer at Oktoberfest. They all studied English in school as kids, did studies abroad in England, Canada, and America, and speak my language better than I do. I’m already so self-conscious about the fact that they have to speak English to me, but I’m even more embarrassed to speak German to them. I know they are just trying to show support, but they don’t know how much pressure I already put on myself. I hate being in linguistic limbo, where I understand enough German not to be able to play dumb, but not enough to actually sound smart. I understand about half of what I hear, and I can only make a few grammatically-correct sentences. How the heck am I supposed to be fluent by Christmas if we won’t even cover all of the cases in class before then? I may just have to hide from my friends until I can make sense when I talk.

So today is Halloween. Last week we put out some cute but tacky yard decorations, just little purple and green goblins on tombstones. The neighbor kids were very curious about them. Some even poked them with sticks and backed away quickly in case they jumped up and said “Boo”.

The commissary ran out of pumpkins, so we will miss out on our tradition of carving jack-o-lanterns, roasting seeds in garlic butter, and making fresh pumpkin muffins. The kids are really disappointed about that.

I had heard that Germans are starting to do more trick or treating, but to be sure I asked my German friends. Oops. I think I hit a nerve. I got responses like, “We feel like that is just another American thing that comes over here like a tidal wave. We don’t have to do all of the things Americans do.” Or “But we are Christians. We don’t celebrate evil things.” Or “It’s only American commercialism that makes Halloween a holiday.” And “I think it is rude to teach children to ask for candy! Especially with a threat to do tricks on you if you don’t give it to them!” Surely they don’t imagine little five-year old Cinderellas and Power Rangers TP-ing houses if they don’t fork over the Gummi Baerchen.

I explained to them that we are Christians too, and that we always saw Halloween as a way to make light of evil, to make it less scary and to show it that it can’t have power over goodness. I hate the gory scary stuff myself. But the holiday has a sense of humor. The tradition of people dressing up started as a way to “trick” the evil spirits into passing them by. It is good, innocent fun. The word “Halloween” means “holy evening”. It is to All Saints Day what Mardi Gras is to Lent. I mean, I’m not saying it hasn’t gotten out of hand and commercialized over the years (like most holidays), but it is our tradition. I certainly don't expect them to partake in it since it is not a German tradition. But it is sad to me that I can’t share this celebration with my friends and that they feel so negatively about it. Dave had wanted to have a Halloween party and have the neighbors over to bob for apples, drink cider, and play games. But I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable or feel like we were trying to take over with our obnoxious American-ness. Sigh. When in Rome and all that.

So instead, we are going to go bowling at Panzer because it is free to anyone in costume. Dave is going as King Arthur, I am Morgana (the witch in the King Arthur story), Claire is a Spider Witch, and Luke is Spiderman. Then we are going trick-or-treating at Patch tonight. Early on I had invited a few German friends to come, but nobody wanted to. Go fig. Anyway, we came up with a twist. This afternoon before bowling, we are going to knock on our neighbors’ doors and GIVE AWAY candy. We made up little orange and black baskets full of candy and toys to wish them a Happy Halloween. I just hope they won’t mind the gummy eyeballs and chocolate severed fingers. Surely they will get the humor. And the good intentions. I hope.

Ich spreche…what class is this again?

I absolutely love my Volkshochschule Deutsch Kurs. My instructors are top notch and my international classmates are wonderful. We have 23 students from 14 different countries, including India, Brazil, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Kyrgistan, Poland, America, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Croatia, and Kosovo. I really think we ought to have a potluck.

My German is slowly improving. Helping Claire translate her homework for an hour or so each night really helps. But twenty hours a week in class is the real key. I love that we all speak different languages and have to use our halting German in order to understand each other. We don't hesitate together; we just jump in and try. Whereas I am all kinds of embarrassed trying to make a sentence in front of Steffi or Astrid, I feel comfortable stumbling through with my VHS classmates.

One of my favorite unexpected benefits of the class is that my Russian is improving too! I have had lots of opportunity to practice with the Eastern Europeans in my class. Sometimes I will have my American friend Sally on one side asking me questions in English and my Uzbeki friend Irina on the other side asking me questions in Russian and my instructor asking me questions in German. Sometimes I have to stop and think about what language I’m speaking. But it is so much fun.

I feel like I am breaking the code a little more each day. Every time I learn a new word, I see it everywhere, and it feels like a treasure hunt. It is exciting.

Uh oh.

Gotta go. Dave just came in from Oktoberfest, completely pickled. He went with guys from work and rode the train home. I was happy to stay home and steal a few minutes to myself. Poor thing. I haven’t seen him like this since his bachelor party thirteen years ago. Three liters of beer and three shots. Is he crazy? I’d better go hold his head so he doesn’t drown himself in the toilet.

The Cosmic “Kick Me” Sign

You know that proverbial little straw that broke the camel’s back? Well, this week I’ve been dumped with pounds of those straws and I’m fixing to break. Seriously. Lord, y’all, where do I start?

Tuesday I got to my German language class just barely on time. When I reached the parking garage, the car in front of me wasn’t moving. Cars began piling up behind me, waiting, and eventually blocking the priority road behind us. Turns out the machine wasn’t spitting out a ticket. So, after some maneuvering, I drove down the busy street and around the block to find a parking spot. This was going to suck since my class lasts four hours and the parkschein (parking pass) only lasts two. I'd have to go down later and move my car and buy another one. The first time I tried that I was late and ended up with a 5-euro parking ticket.

But that was a moot point anyway because when I got to the machine I realized I only had a bunch of two-euro coins and pennies, and the machine only took one euro coins and smaller silver money. So I jumped in the car again, spilling my coffee and polluting the air with some foul language, and I drove around the block to see if the garage machine might be working again.

Wow! Hope on the horizon! I saw the arm lift and a car go in. So I tried it too. But it did not work for me. The readout gave me a bunch of words that I had yet to learn in my class, so I sat there with my dictionary, trying to do a quick translation before another car might come and block me in. It turns out that I could have gone in without a ticket if I’d had a German debit card. Which I didn’t.

So I went back again to park on the street, and I dug around between the seats of the car and in the console until I came up with one single euro coin. I bought my parkschein and went to class. I wrote 9:53 in black ink on top of my hand so I would not forget to run out to the meter on time.

I finally arrived in class 30 minutes late. I made change with a friend and left class an hour later to buy another parkschein and move my car, trying not to interrupt our instructor as I did so. But, oh wait, I forgot my keys. So I went back into class and grabbed my purse. But then I realized my keys were in my coat pocket. So I went BACK in again, grabbed my keys and went to the meter. By then the garage entrance was fixed and I parked there.

When I got home to pick up Luke from Kindergarten, I found out that the day before he had painted his two American friends, sisters, with blue paint. They were wearing brand new matching Gymboree shirts (you know, the kind that cost more than my whole wardrobe) and the mother told me she had washed them three times with no luck. I of course offered to pay for them. She said she wouldn’t let me. I need to buy her a gift certificate or something.

So are you tired yet? There’s more.

I then spent my afternoon agonizing over whether or not to let Claire begin Girl Scouts that day. It would mean skipping her after-school German class that her teacher set up for her. But she had been saying that the class was way easy for her, that she was with a bunch of younger kids and they just colored and learned easy words that she already knows. German class is every Tuesday. Girl Scouts is every other Tuesday at the same time. As of yet she has no real extra-curricular activities, and she is not involved with any other American kids except the ones she plays with sometimes in the neighborhood. So we picked Girl Scouts with the caveat that I would speak to her teacher the next day about the class. (She is checking on it and will get back to me).

So Girl Scouts was fine, but I was instantly overwhelmed by the amount of work it would entail for the mothers. Wow. Cupcakes, crafts, catalogs, cookie sales. We moms attended a special meeting with the troop leader while the girls made masks and painted faces. When the cupcake list came around, I signed up to do the Halloween ones. The lady next to me said, “I’ll sign up for cupcakes on the 4th. That’s election day.” I said, “Oh yeah, that would be cute. You could make little red, white and blue ones with little elephants and donkeys on them.” She looked me right in the eye and said, “You mean Jackasses! Don’t get me started on them. I don’t want to swear in front of the girls.”

I sat there, stunned, wishing I had a clever comeback. I didn’t. Should I tell her, “Hey, not all of us Jackasses are so bad”? Should I say, “Maybe you should not assume that people you don’t know will agree with you.” Or maybe I could have said something about my being rubber and her being glue. I dunno. But instantly I realized just how little I really fit there. That woman felt it was safe to assume my political beliefs simply because of where I was (at a Girl Scout meeting on a military base). But she was wrong. My choices and opinions don’t really fit neatly into any box, and certainly not into hers. So I sat there like a 99th wheel, anxious to get out of there.

When I finally did, I found a nasty note on my car. I had parked in a lot with no signs in it, but apparently it belonged to housing and I had unintentionally pissed someone off. Yet again, I felt that old "I don't belong here" vibe. Suddenly I was in junior high again, desperately wanting to be liked and accepted by people I didn’t really like or accept.

That evening I fed everyone, read stories, got kids to bed, and drew myself a big bubble bath. Just as I got settled with my Fannie Flagg book, my dear sweet husband came in, all sweaty and gross from riding his bike. He wanted to join me. I love the man, and usually I’m happy to share a bath, but this night the last thing I wanted was a big sweaty man in my tub. So I just went to bed.

Yesterday was a little better, although a little neighborhood boy attacked Luke with a big stick out of sheer meanness (I watched him do it), I lost an earring, and for the first time nobody but me showed up to hula hoop group. Feel sorry for me yet?

Today I determined to set off for class early in case the garage machine was having trouble again. But as I left the Kindergarten I stepped in a warm heap of cat scat that I did not notice until after I had tracked it all inside the floor of my car. After getting myself and the car cleaned up (not an easy task), I was late again.

On the way home from class, my travel coffee mug leaked out all over my books and pretty much ruined my already battered German dictionary. I need a new mug. And a new dictionary. And a hug.

So that is why I wrote on my Facebook page this week that I felt like I had a cosmic “Kick me” sign posted on my butt. My friend Stephen wrote back and said, “But what if aliens don’t have feet?” I answered, “Or what if they have hundreds of feet?” He retorted, “Yeah, but what if their feet are tiny and their kicks feel like a nice massage?” So says the optimist to the pessimist.

Schule!

I love autumn in Germany. The apples are ripe. The farmers are selling cider and the bakers are making strudel. The leaves are brilliant in their yellows, reds, oranges, greens and purples. It looks like someone spilled a bag of Skittles over the hills. Neighbors are flying kites every afternoon. We start pulling our sweaters out of storage. And, of course, school begins.

On the first day of the school year in Colorado, my friend Sara and her husband danced around the house singing “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” I know how they feel. Kids are back in classes and out from underfoot. No more staying up too late at night, eating too many popsicles, loud yelling, constant bickering, high-pitched whining, or eye rolling. And the kids are acting nicer too.

But I love more than just changing our routine after a willy-nilly lazy summer. I love buying new school supplies, getting new school books, and filling in a new school calendar with classes, meetings, events and vacations. Although I always mourn the end of summer just a bit (I am solar powered after all) I love the colorful leaves, the autumn holidays, and the possibilities that a new school year brings.

This year Claire started second grade at a German elementary school. She loves it. But getting ready for the school year was more complicated this time. For one thing, I have to translate every letter the school sends home before I read it, which takes time. And the supplies she needs are really different. She has to use a fountain pen and colored pencils instead of a regular pencil and crayons as she would in an American school. She had to get new folders and paper because the European dimensions are different and they use two-hole binders instead of 3-hole ones.

She also had to get a schulranzen, which is a hard-shelled German school backpack on steroids. Kids wearing them look like little turtles. Claire didn’t want a girly one, so she got a red and orange one with African lions on it. It has adjustable padded straps and back supports, ergonomic fitting, and reflective strips to help keep kids safe from cars when they are walking to school. The inside has a matching mappchen, which is a pencil case with slots for every pen, pencil, eraser and fountain pen refill. It has a matching snack case, water bottle, change purse and sports bag. This thing is nicer than my luggage, and pricier too. German engineering. It’s a beautiful thing.

On Claire’s first day of school, Steffi came over with a schultuete for her. This is a German tradition for children starting the first day of first grade. Since Claire was not here last year, Stef said, she thought she should have one now. It’s a long cone (kind of like an upside down dunce cap) filled with candies and small toys, and secured with fabric and ribbon at the top. Claire’s was red with ladybug chocolates crawling up the side. She loved it.

And I loved mine too. My neighbor Astrid made me one when I started intensive German language classes at the Volkshochschule, which is like community education back home. Mine was decorated with sea shells and raffia and was filled with energy gum, rum-filled candies, powdered soda mix, coffee-filled chocolates, and little books. It was a great joke and a sweet gift. I loved it!

So what am I doing in school other than not finding time to blog? Well, I spend twenty hours a week in class (that’s four hours a day, five days a week) trying to learn how to string together all of the pearls of vocabulary I have learned. My instructors both said I was ready to skip a level and start at the second class, but I didn’t want to. I think I had them fooled because I know so many words and I understand nearly everything I hear. But I still can’t make more than a handful of intelligible sentences. Once I get the grammar down, I expect to move quickly. I’d better. Astrid and Steffi said I have until Christmas and then they will only speak German to me. I had better learn the language or find a good hiding place.