A true story

In the car on the way to visit T's family, the traffic report came on the radio. We naturally turned up the volume. What followed was pretty much your normal report - construction on the A5, 3km stop and go traffic... cleaning up an accident on the A3, 5km traffic...

and then:

Achtung: be careful on the B61 (ok, I don't actually remember which highway it was, unfortunately) there is a kangaroo in the left lane.

What?! A Kangaroo?! I turned to T and asked "so, is that like a kind of car or something?" I just could not believe that 1) there was a kangaroo in Germany and 2) that this poor unfortunate soul had found its way to the highway!

He laughed, "no, you are thinking of a Kangoo. That is a kind of car. A Kangaroo is an animal."

me: "Well! What is a Kangaroo doing on the Autobahn?"

T: "How should I know. Maybe its for mothers day."

Yeah, I don't understand either. But either way, I hope the Kangaroo made it out ok!

Things I did not come to Germany to learn

...but I'm glad I did.

First of all, things I did come here to learn:

German. check

history. check

public transportation. check

a different culture. check

Things I did not come here to learn:

punctuality

how to teach english

how to bribe little kids to learn english

how to climb mountains of paperwork

how important stamps can be to any official person

how to prepare and eat white asparagus

what it feels like to fail at school

how to seriously motivate myself. for myself. by myself. (still working on that one)

how to be in love with a german

how to fight in german

how to get out of a bicycle ticket

celcius

the metric system

the value of good customer service

There are many times in my daily life when I stop and think "I never expected to be doing this/learning this/thinking this" and I think back to a conversation with my mom a few years back. She surprised me by saying "You're not who I thought you would be" (in the context of the conversation, it was a good thing...lest you think my mom was somehow telling me what a disappointment I've become!) I just had to laugh and say, I know. I'm not who I thought I would be either. I never in a million years could have imagined the crazy journey that has led me to this place and these lessons. I have certainly spent a lot of time being uncomfortable, unsure and frustrated. I have been lonely, afraid, overwhelmed and humbled. Thank God for that!

I have learned to look at the world from a different perspective, I have learned to examine my priorities and make changes. I have learned a lot about how to respect other people. I have learned that I am not that important. (in the "I'm not the center of the universe" selfish way, not "oh, just forget about me, I'm not important" eeyore way) Today I experienced again a feeling that has been a staple of my life for many years. I was late. Years ago, I was usually at least 10 minutes late everywhere. Since moving to Germany, I average (well, if I am optimistic...) 5 minutes early, but mostly on time. There have been exceptions. Today was one of those times. As I pedalled with burning calves to the uni, I was cursing the fact that I simply lost track of time. I left my apartment 7 minutes after I was supposed to be meeting this professor. All of a sudden, I realized that this crazy, heart-pounding, panicked, thinking of ways to apologize rush has been largely absent from my life as of late. And I don't miss it a bit. I have come to see that when I am on time, it means that I respect that person and the time that they are taking for me. I like who I am, even though its not who I thought I would be. I say thank the good Lord for teaching me all of the things that I didn't expect to learn. ~love

This just happened.

Me: oh man, I'm tired of German burocracy, this rediculous Prof with silly hair, wahhh wahh wahh (just imagine a lot of complaining...my main hobby as of late)

T: hey, you could bring a wii back when you visit USA.

Me: umm, ok

T: the new one is coming out and so the old ones are gonna be cheap

Me: oh, you're serious. umm, ok...

(insert several minutes of chat, silence etc...)

T: well, technically neither of us really has any money. But, I mean, if someone gives you one, you should bring it back.

Me: ok, if someone gives me a wii, I will bring it back. I promise.

This abrupt change of subject brought to you by the same man who cries conspiracy now when more family members get engaged. he's convinced its a plot to make me move back, like, tomorrow.

That boy makes me laugh - that is certainly good for my sanity. ~love

To whom it may concern:

dear microsoft word,

i would really appreciate it if you could just go ahead and figure out on your own when i am writing in german and when i am writing in english. it is annoying beyond belief to have to highlight sections of text and change the language multiple times a page just to keep you from "auto-correcting" words in a different language. seriously. you can do so much. and you are in posession of both an english and german dictionary. it shouldn't be so hard to just work with me on a german paper with english language sources and quotes. figure it out and stop driving me crazy. yours sincerely....

dear neighbor upstairs,

please stop practicing that same song on your guitar for hours on end. i would love to go somewhere else, but unfortuantely i have too many books to make me mobile. so, if we could just keep the practice sessions to an hour, tops, that would be great. thanks. yours sincerely...

dear germans,

please start being more flexible. i would appreciate, for example, office hours/business hours more than once a week. i would also apprecaite a little less paperwork. seriously. yours sincerely....

dear papers,

please write yourselves. thanks.

dear books,

if you could come pre-hilighted with notes, that would really help me a lot.

dear clock,

could you help me out a little bit with this whole time crunch thing? i would be so grateful! yours sincerely...

Bekah

Unexpected

Sometimes the most unexpected things happen in the most hum-drum places. In the past week, I have had two eventful grocery store visits. I may or may not be over-representing the excitement of these times as I do tend to live in the library/at my desk (when I need too many books to bother carrying them all to the library) these days.

Incident #1.

I ran into the grocery store "real quick" to buy a couple of items, and much to my dismay, the three open registers were simply not sufficient to handle the volume of late-afternoon customers. Annoyed, I chose a line and prepared to spend the next 10 minutes being annoyed at the line length. Not 2 minutes later, I heard strains of a rather heated conversation behind me. Basically, 2 registers right next to each other were open, and for some reason a few people decided that it would be best to form one line and [ski lift line style] "merge" as they came to the registers. Well, obviously someone came who did not get the memo and accidentally cut in front of the "one line-rs". One of which, naturally (in a heated tone) informed him of this. Well, that was just too much. He was quite affronted by the accusation that he had violated some sort of unknown agreement and defended himself vehemently ("Hello Mädel! If there are two registers open! Then we can certainly from two lines! ! !) Of course that is when the boyfriend stepped in. With a look like he was trying to eject his eyes out of his head, he got right up in the line-cutter's face. (insert a string of not so nice slangy German words here). It almost came to blows. Way intense. Suddenly, I realized how incredibly rediculous it was that everyone was so worried about saving 2 minutes of waiting in line! Honestly! The rediculous argument made me stop and check my own attitude and realize that my two (or ten, whatever) extra minutes in line could be better used than by being frustrated. There are so many nice things to think about and observe, not to mention thoughts concerning my papers / oral exam topics / lesson plans to sort out. So, new attitude - hooray!

Incident #2

You know those times when you "bop" into the store just to pick up a few items. You don't need a cart! You're only buying 2 things, 3 tops! And by the time you make it to the register, you look like you are auditioning to become a circus clown balancing act. This was me yesterday. [Oh, I forgot, I totally need tomatoes ... and cheese ... do I have any rice cakes left? better buy some to be sure ...] I knew I could get all the stuff home, I just had to make it to the black band at the register to relieve my precarious load. Then it happened. I dropped a bag of lettuce ("oh thank goodness, it wasn't the cream - that would be such a mess!") A nice girl behind me (seeing my plight) quckly bent to retrieve it. Then I took a step forward. I lost the rice cakes ... And then the cream ... bent to pick that up - still intact! thank goodness! - and dropped the pasta. Finally, the girl behind me offered to hold a few items until I made it to the register. We all need help sometimes. And although I felt pathetic and slightly inept, I was thankful for the kindness of strangers, who held my things and resisted laughing out loud.

I wish you some unexpected happenings in the most mundane of places! ~love~

Not alone

I had one of those moments today in which I remembered that I am not alone. In all of life's awkwardness and idiosyncracy, I am not an island of clumsy accidents. For this reminder, I would like to thank the stranger on her bicycle at the stoplight in the rain today.

Let me explain: Often in Germany, bikers ride up to stoplights slowly and grab onto the pole in order to stay upright on their bikes. As this woman approached the stoplight, she leaned .... annnd.... fell off her bike. Basically in slow motion. In the rain. She did not hurt herself (it was very very slow) but did not exactly pull off what you would call a graceful save. With flailing arms, she stuck the landing with the front tire facing the wrong way and a sheepish grin on her face. I grinned conspiratorily at her as we crossed the street going opposite directions. I have done this. We are not alone. ~love~

The corner table

I have a spot. A routine. Usually, I like to mix things up a bit to keep the creative juices flowing. Change libraries, coffee shops, times, music. But I have this place I keep going back to. A long table in the corner of the first floor of a library. Next to floor to ceiling windows. Under a very large lamp.

Here is the thing. I think I am allergic to the library in the old city. Like, cool - our library is one of the oldest in Germany and a tourist attraction, but - maybe its not so healthy to breathe the same dust as Mark Twain, Helmut Kohl, Philipp Melanchthon, Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, etc for long periods of time. Just a thought.

So here I am. In another library. In the corner, under the lamp, where I can almost feel the spring breeze passing me by as I write. and write. and write. ~love~