Here we are, already on our flight back to the U.S. It really doesn’t feel like that long since we packed up and moved to Berlin, and in fact it hasn’t actually been that long – just 9 months. Of course so much has happened in these 9 months. Still, it’s hard to believe that the first of our 3 school years in Berlin is in the past. This is a perfect occasion for reflection and I have been doing a lot of it over the last couple of months as the school year has been winding down. One thing that has really struck me is how different my life here is from how I pictured it. I didn’t know what life in Berlin would be like and my mind was wide open to a number of possibilities, but still several developments have been completely surprising.
1. We aren’t living in a cramped city apartment.
I thought everyone lived in apartments here. And that everything is tiny in Europe. When we were packing the things we would ship overseas, I packed 4 cereal bowls, 4 plates, 4 cups – one for each of us. I thought our cabinets would be tiny and we wouldn’t have the space for much more. We all packed just half or less than half of our clothes, expecting tiny closet space. We expected to have 3 bedrooms, but no offices or guestrooms, not much storage space. A small shared garden.
When we first started looking at housing, I was surprised to find that while there were apartment buildings and duplex/triplex type housing on our list of properties to view, there were also standalone houses. And lo and behold, we ended up renting a whole house, all to ourselves, with a large yard. We did have to raise our budget considerably to afford this house, unfortunately. But it has more space than I ever dreamed of – 3 bedrooms, a guest room/office, an office for Dan, a nice large bathroom, a decent sized kitchen, and a dining room for family meals. One of the first things I did was remedy the ridiculous 1 bowl/plate/cup for each of us strategy. Now we have a comfortable amount of dishes and don’t have to wash after every meal like we’re camping.
Don’t get me wrong – most people here DO live in apartments. If we didn’t have a dog, we would too. But the apartments here aren’t like the apartments I’m familiar with in the US. When I pictured “apartment”, I thought of the cookie cutter things I lived in post-college, with paper-thin walls and zero personality. But middle class apartments here are much more unique and interesting and spacious. The only time you know you’re in an apartment is when you’re walking up the shared steps; once you enter the apartment, it feels like a home. Many of them have gorgeous architectural details, much more interesting than the home we live in. And they are really sound-proof, at least the ones I have been in. I imagine in larger cities this is what an apartment means, but I have never lived like that. Anyway, if we didn’t have Diablo I would certainly choose apartment life, it would save us a lot of money.
2. I am so much busier than I ever dreamed I would be
Before we moved, I pictured myself isolated in a foreign country. I knew that Germans are very reserved, and so I didn’t expect to make any friends. I fully expected to have literally NOTHING to do. I brought along several boxes of scrapbooking supplies, thinking here was my opportunity to catch up on the last 10 years of my life since the kids were born. Here is how I thought I would spend my days:
I thought maybe I would organize all my favorite recipes. I thought it would be great if I could go through all our home videos and edit them. Believe it or not, I actually brought a backlog of old magazines from home, thinking I might run low on English reading material and I could read these.
Well.
Boy was I wrong.
I knew the first couple of months would be busy locating a home and furnishing it, and just figuring out Germany in general. But this process went on much longer than I expected. (See the previous 9 months of blogs!) Doing all the bureaucratic stuff, furnishing a house that was much larger than expected, getting my German driver’s license, planning family trips, figuring out the mail, etc. – all these things took almost all my time for the entire time we’ve been here!
But on top of all that, I have been really busy socially, which was completely unexpected. I have found the expat community here to be extremely welcoming. I’ve made friends with people immediately, like you do in college. The homeroom mothers in Carter’s class immediately reached out to me and invited me to coffee in those first weeks. They introduced me to other people, and before I knew it there were quite a few familiar faces at school. I met people on our bus route. I met the girls at the gym that turned out to be my running group. I met people in my German class. I met people through a parenting class at the school. I met still more people through the Berlin’s Best outing group at the school. I met people at church. I even made friends with neighbors, German ones, who have invited us over to their homes, which we were told wouldn’t happen until they got to know us really, really well. And I have made friends with wives from Dan’s work, both the wife of the man he replaced and the wife of his boss.
So there is always something going on! My running group has gotten together for weekend parties, Friday evenings at the lake, coffee after our Friday runs. We are planning an Oktoberfest blowout. My German teacher and I are starting a book club! There are monthly outings to go on with Berlin’s Best. Neighbors have had us over for tea and dinner. Church friends have invited us to gatherings. Friends from school have lunches and birthday gatherings. I am having so much fun with so many fun and interesting people!
And of course there are always volunteer opportunities that seem to multiply for parents who aren’t busy with day jobs. The school is of course constantly asking for food for class parties, teacher appreciation, special events. I helped out with Book Week and Haley’s class field trips. I led Carter’s scout meetings for the last 6 weeks of the school year. I made food for the social hour after church and ushered at their Christmas performance. I have been asked to chair the mission committee, although I’m planning to turn down that enormous responsibility, more on that later maybe. I agreed to teach English as a second language to parents at the school, and so I spend my Sunday evenings making lesson plans and my Monday mornings teaching. I felt blissfully free from obligations as we departed Missoula, but that didn’t last long!
So, maybe you have guessed that I haven’t once opened my scrapbook, I only read for about 10 minutes at night before I fall asleep, and I haven’t even thought about the home videos.
3. I am nowhere near as proficient in German is I would have liked to be
As I said above, I expected to spend some time each day learning German. I suppose it’s true, in a way, because I am always learning German – listening to the radio, reading signs around me, listening to people talk, attempting to speak to people, even speaking German to myself as I go through the day, trying to see if I can describe what I am doing in German. But I spend very little time actually studying the language. I attend my weekly German class at the school, but aside from that I’m lucky if I do my Rosetta Stone lessons or my “Learn German the Easy Way” book once a week. Whenever I do, I learn a ton. It’s incredibly valuable to formally study it. But since it isn’t an “obligation”, and I have so many other “obligations”, it often is the last thing I do. And there are SO many English speakers here that I can really get by without a lot of German. I think it’s a myth that all the Germans speak English; I have encountered plenty of Germans who speak no English, or refuse to speak English. But there are so many English speakers – at the international school, in the American Church of Berlin, in my running group…even my German neighbors do speak good English. So I’m not forced to speak it unless I go to a store. I don’t have to speak it in social situations. One of my goals for next year is to attempt to speak German with the neighbors, but I can still only say such basic things that it’s really hard to have a conversation. At the end of year 1 of 3 I had hoped to really be pretty proficient in German. And I have certainly learned a lot. I’m kind of at the place where sometimes I speak German and apparently I do it well enough that the person I’m speaking with doesn’t realize I don’t really speak German and they spew forth some really complicated and fast sentences that force me to stare blankly and then tell them that I don’t speak much German. But that’s really only in “service” situations. I can express well enough what I need to buy or ask a question about a product. But I can’t really have a social conversation. If it doesn’t involve colors, numbers, food, or some other basic categories of words then I probably can’t express it. I had hoped to be farther along.
4. The house is still not finished
Ugh. I can’t believe we’re going into year 2 and there are still tasks to be done to turn the house into a home. But there are. I am ALMOST done (I hope to blog about that soon with before and after pictures.) But we still have 3 rooms with bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling (one is Carter’s and I think I will leave it that way – he doesn’t care). There are no window coverings in the bathroom. I still want a chair in front of my dresser in the bedroom, and I still want to make Lego tables for the kids in their rooms. If I had written this 3 weeks ago I would have said there are still boxes to unpack, but in these last few weeks I bought bookshelves for my office and unpacked our books and my scrapbook stuff. That was the last of the boxes, yay! I would like to buy a few decorative items for the house, but there is no rush for that. I’m hoping to pick up cool stuff on our travels over the next few years! And maybe to shop flea markets next year to find a few gems. But I never thought it would take this long to get settled.
5. We aren't all soccer experts
Everyone plays soccer in Germany, right? I thought we would come here and be playing so much soccer that we would all raise our game several levels. (The bar is low – none of us are very good to begin with.) But we have found two interesting things.
1. Girls don’t really play soccer here. What???!!! That’s right, in one of the soccer capitals of the world, it’s a man’s world. Soccer is considered “boyish”. Yes, there are girls who play, but there really aren't many. This was a huge disappointment to Haley, who loved to play soccer in the US. She is one of only 3 girls in her class who play in the soccer cage at recess, and one of just a handful who play in the extracurricular on Fridays. I haven’t found her a team. And I haven’t found myself a team. I really thrived on my soccer team for all 12 years in Missoula, and not having that game to play is kind of a hole in my life.
2. If you aren’t already good, you’re not good enough to play. I thought with such a national pastime that we couldn’t help but play and get better, but it’s kind of a “rich get richer” thing. The kids are already too old to learn soccer. People learn it so young that if you don’t have skills by age 8 or so, there doesn’t seem to be a place for you to play. The kids’ school has a soccer cage, an enclosed place with a goal at each end, which is constantly occupied by enthusiastic players. Both kids like to play in the cage, but were initially intimidated by the level of play. Carter came home from school telling me who the best players in his class were. I was later surprised to be talking to the mother of one of the best players in the class, who told me that her son had a rough week the previous week because his soccer club demoted him – he wasn’t good enough to play on the team he was playing on, so they moved him down to the lowest level. If the best player in school is in the lowest level of club play, there is no place for my kids in club soccer. So they play at recess at school and are happy doing that, and are actually picking up some skills, but it’s not like I thought it would be if they had German coaching and experienced teams to play on. And of course the same goes for me. There is no place for a 40-something year old woman to play who isn’t a former superstar. I’m still searching, and maybe I will find a rec team for schmoes somewhere, but I’m not expecting to.
1. We aren’t living in a cramped city apartment.
I thought everyone lived in apartments here. And that everything is tiny in Europe. When we were packing the things we would ship overseas, I packed 4 cereal bowls, 4 plates, 4 cups – one for each of us. I thought our cabinets would be tiny and we wouldn’t have the space for much more. We all packed just half or less than half of our clothes, expecting tiny closet space. We expected to have 3 bedrooms, but no offices or guestrooms, not much storage space. A small shared garden.
When we first started looking at housing, I was surprised to find that while there were apartment buildings and duplex/triplex type housing on our list of properties to view, there were also standalone houses. And lo and behold, we ended up renting a whole house, all to ourselves, with a large yard. We did have to raise our budget considerably to afford this house, unfortunately. But it has more space than I ever dreamed of – 3 bedrooms, a guest room/office, an office for Dan, a nice large bathroom, a decent sized kitchen, and a dining room for family meals. One of the first things I did was remedy the ridiculous 1 bowl/plate/cup for each of us strategy. Now we have a comfortable amount of dishes and don’t have to wash after every meal like we’re camping.
Don’t get me wrong – most people here DO live in apartments. If we didn’t have a dog, we would too. But the apartments here aren’t like the apartments I’m familiar with in the US. When I pictured “apartment”, I thought of the cookie cutter things I lived in post-college, with paper-thin walls and zero personality. But middle class apartments here are much more unique and interesting and spacious. The only time you know you’re in an apartment is when you’re walking up the shared steps; once you enter the apartment, it feels like a home. Many of them have gorgeous architectural details, much more interesting than the home we live in. And they are really sound-proof, at least the ones I have been in. I imagine in larger cities this is what an apartment means, but I have never lived like that. Anyway, if we didn’t have Diablo I would certainly choose apartment life, it would save us a lot of money.
2. I am so much busier than I ever dreamed I would be
Before we moved, I pictured myself isolated in a foreign country. I knew that Germans are very reserved, and so I didn’t expect to make any friends. I fully expected to have literally NOTHING to do. I brought along several boxes of scrapbooking supplies, thinking here was my opportunity to catch up on the last 10 years of my life since the kids were born. Here is how I thought I would spend my days:
- Wake up
- Get the kids to school
- Spend about an hour on German lessons
- Work out
- Sit in a comfy chair and read/spread out and scrapbook (reading and scrapbooking on alternating days, maybe)
- Clean house a bit
- Pick up the kids
- Make dinner
- Have a nice leisurely family evening
- Repeat
I thought maybe I would organize all my favorite recipes. I thought it would be great if I could go through all our home videos and edit them. Believe it or not, I actually brought a backlog of old magazines from home, thinking I might run low on English reading material and I could read these.
Well.
Boy was I wrong.
I knew the first couple of months would be busy locating a home and furnishing it, and just figuring out Germany in general. But this process went on much longer than I expected. (See the previous 9 months of blogs!) Doing all the bureaucratic stuff, furnishing a house that was much larger than expected, getting my German driver’s license, planning family trips, figuring out the mail, etc. – all these things took almost all my time for the entire time we’ve been here!
But on top of all that, I have been really busy socially, which was completely unexpected. I have found the expat community here to be extremely welcoming. I’ve made friends with people immediately, like you do in college. The homeroom mothers in Carter’s class immediately reached out to me and invited me to coffee in those first weeks. They introduced me to other people, and before I knew it there were quite a few familiar faces at school. I met people on our bus route. I met the girls at the gym that turned out to be my running group. I met people in my German class. I met people through a parenting class at the school. I met still more people through the Berlin’s Best outing group at the school. I met people at church. I even made friends with neighbors, German ones, who have invited us over to their homes, which we were told wouldn’t happen until they got to know us really, really well. And I have made friends with wives from Dan’s work, both the wife of the man he replaced and the wife of his boss.
So there is always something going on! My running group has gotten together for weekend parties, Friday evenings at the lake, coffee after our Friday runs. We are planning an Oktoberfest blowout. My German teacher and I are starting a book club! There are monthly outings to go on with Berlin’s Best. Neighbors have had us over for tea and dinner. Church friends have invited us to gatherings. Friends from school have lunches and birthday gatherings. I am having so much fun with so many fun and interesting people!
And of course there are always volunteer opportunities that seem to multiply for parents who aren’t busy with day jobs. The school is of course constantly asking for food for class parties, teacher appreciation, special events. I helped out with Book Week and Haley’s class field trips. I led Carter’s scout meetings for the last 6 weeks of the school year. I made food for the social hour after church and ushered at their Christmas performance. I have been asked to chair the mission committee, although I’m planning to turn down that enormous responsibility, more on that later maybe. I agreed to teach English as a second language to parents at the school, and so I spend my Sunday evenings making lesson plans and my Monday mornings teaching. I felt blissfully free from obligations as we departed Missoula, but that didn’t last long!
So, maybe you have guessed that I haven’t once opened my scrapbook, I only read for about 10 minutes at night before I fall asleep, and I haven’t even thought about the home videos.
3. I am nowhere near as proficient in German is I would have liked to be
As I said above, I expected to spend some time each day learning German. I suppose it’s true, in a way, because I am always learning German – listening to the radio, reading signs around me, listening to people talk, attempting to speak to people, even speaking German to myself as I go through the day, trying to see if I can describe what I am doing in German. But I spend very little time actually studying the language. I attend my weekly German class at the school, but aside from that I’m lucky if I do my Rosetta Stone lessons or my “Learn German the Easy Way” book once a week. Whenever I do, I learn a ton. It’s incredibly valuable to formally study it. But since it isn’t an “obligation”, and I have so many other “obligations”, it often is the last thing I do. And there are SO many English speakers here that I can really get by without a lot of German. I think it’s a myth that all the Germans speak English; I have encountered plenty of Germans who speak no English, or refuse to speak English. But there are so many English speakers – at the international school, in the American Church of Berlin, in my running group…even my German neighbors do speak good English. So I’m not forced to speak it unless I go to a store. I don’t have to speak it in social situations. One of my goals for next year is to attempt to speak German with the neighbors, but I can still only say such basic things that it’s really hard to have a conversation. At the end of year 1 of 3 I had hoped to really be pretty proficient in German. And I have certainly learned a lot. I’m kind of at the place where sometimes I speak German and apparently I do it well enough that the person I’m speaking with doesn’t realize I don’t really speak German and they spew forth some really complicated and fast sentences that force me to stare blankly and then tell them that I don’t speak much German. But that’s really only in “service” situations. I can express well enough what I need to buy or ask a question about a product. But I can’t really have a social conversation. If it doesn’t involve colors, numbers, food, or some other basic categories of words then I probably can’t express it. I had hoped to be farther along.
4. The house is still not finished
Ugh. I can’t believe we’re going into year 2 and there are still tasks to be done to turn the house into a home. But there are. I am ALMOST done (I hope to blog about that soon with before and after pictures.) But we still have 3 rooms with bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling (one is Carter’s and I think I will leave it that way – he doesn’t care). There are no window coverings in the bathroom. I still want a chair in front of my dresser in the bedroom, and I still want to make Lego tables for the kids in their rooms. If I had written this 3 weeks ago I would have said there are still boxes to unpack, but in these last few weeks I bought bookshelves for my office and unpacked our books and my scrapbook stuff. That was the last of the boxes, yay! I would like to buy a few decorative items for the house, but there is no rush for that. I’m hoping to pick up cool stuff on our travels over the next few years! And maybe to shop flea markets next year to find a few gems. But I never thought it would take this long to get settled.
5. We aren't all soccer experts
Everyone plays soccer in Germany, right? I thought we would come here and be playing so much soccer that we would all raise our game several levels. (The bar is low – none of us are very good to begin with.) But we have found two interesting things.
1. Girls don’t really play soccer here. What???!!! That’s right, in one of the soccer capitals of the world, it’s a man’s world. Soccer is considered “boyish”. Yes, there are girls who play, but there really aren't many. This was a huge disappointment to Haley, who loved to play soccer in the US. She is one of only 3 girls in her class who play in the soccer cage at recess, and one of just a handful who play in the extracurricular on Fridays. I haven’t found her a team. And I haven’t found myself a team. I really thrived on my soccer team for all 12 years in Missoula, and not having that game to play is kind of a hole in my life.
2. If you aren’t already good, you’re not good enough to play. I thought with such a national pastime that we couldn’t help but play and get better, but it’s kind of a “rich get richer” thing. The kids are already too old to learn soccer. People learn it so young that if you don’t have skills by age 8 or so, there doesn’t seem to be a place for you to play. The kids’ school has a soccer cage, an enclosed place with a goal at each end, which is constantly occupied by enthusiastic players. Both kids like to play in the cage, but were initially intimidated by the level of play. Carter came home from school telling me who the best players in his class were. I was later surprised to be talking to the mother of one of the best players in the class, who told me that her son had a rough week the previous week because his soccer club demoted him – he wasn’t good enough to play on the team he was playing on, so they moved him down to the lowest level. If the best player in school is in the lowest level of club play, there is no place for my kids in club soccer. So they play at recess at school and are happy doing that, and are actually picking up some skills, but it’s not like I thought it would be if they had German coaching and experienced teams to play on. And of course the same goes for me. There is no place for a 40-something year old woman to play who isn’t a former superstar. I’m still searching, and maybe I will find a rec team for schmoes somewhere, but I’m not expecting to.
Here's a gratuitous photo:
 |
| Haley in front of the Berlin Philharmonie after her choir performance |
