Three Weeks

Today marks 3 weeks since our arrival in Berlin. Our life in Missoula feels so far away! I miss everyone! It feels kind of like we were scooped up and plopped down in an alternate world. This is just life now, and the other one feels distant.

I have gotten used to many things that were strange or unfamiliar at first.

• I've almost stopped noticing the graffiti everywhere. It just blends into the landscape.
• I still notice the trash and litter but it isn't shocking anymore, it just makes me a little sad.
• I know to show my bus pass to the driver when we step on the bus.
• I know that when I want to get on or off the S-bahn or U-bahn and the doors don't open I need to press the button on the door.
• I know to use a 50 cent or 1 euro coin to unlock the grocery cart at the grocery store.
• I have the right trash bags for trash vs recycling and feel reasonably confident that I'm putting things in the right bins.
• I'm able to use the appliances in our apartment.
• I've settled into a "3 walks a day" routine with Diablo and while it's annoying to walk him first thing in the morning and last thing before bed, it's just what we do.
• I know where all the grocery stores are and am starting to be able to navigate them a little more quickly.

There are some things that are going to take a lot more time though.

• I still don't have the hang of the money. The 1 and 2 euro coins are easy to spot, but the rest of them I have to pull out individually and look at the numbers on them. I also need to get a better wallet so my money isn't all crammed into a single compartment.
• Not speaking the language is super difficult. My only tools are "hello", "I'm sorry", "please" and "thank you". Of course I know many more German words but I don't really need to say "He has red flowers" or "The man wakes the boy up" on a daily basis. I can't say anything that I really need to say. It's actually extremely lonely to not be able to communicate with people. Yesterday there were two incidents just on the stairs in my apartment building. The first was when Haley and I were taking the elevator up after grocery shopping. The door opened and there was a lady standing there holding a little boy. We got out and Haley bounded down the half flight of stairs to get to our door, but the lady said "You need to go up." I said "No, it's okay, we live there" and pointed to the door where Haley was. She said "No, but I..." and then her English failed her and she waved her hand to indicate "never mind". I struggled for a moment to figure out what she was trying to tell me, and then I realized that we were on the wrong floor; she had pressed the elevator button to stop it on the third floor so we had gotten out a floor early. I had no way to say this in German so I floundered through it in English and we both laughed. Probably she didn't understand anything I said but saw us go on upstairs so she guessed we had figured it out.  Then late last night after 10 I was heading down the stairs to take Diablo out. We were bounding down the stairs very quickly and as we rounded the final corner we almost ran right into a man on crutches coming up the stairs. My first impulse on being surprised like that was of course to speak in English, so I said something like "Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there." Then I remembered I was in Germany and so I defaulted to "Entschuldigung", which is like "Excuse me". It felt inadequate.

The kids have both had a cold this week and I am catching it now. It's another grey day. Missoula has many grey days in fall/winter but at least I could see mountains through the grey...Maybe I will curl up on our uncomfortable rental couch and read my book for a while...