My life in Germany feels like a distant dream. Do I really live there? I feel like I have two lives: when I am here in the U.S., it’s as if I never left, and when I’m in Germany, it feels so natural, as if I’ve always been there. On Monday, I fly back to [...]
Posts under ‘Heartburn’
A Window of One’s Own
Yesterday morning I awoke in Weimar. The rain calmed me, and I lingered in the nest of the bed. It was a cheap pension – 35 Euros a night – a collection of cheery rooms above a pub, the kind of rooms with stained carpet, amateur sponge-painted walls, and mattresses so cheap you can feel [...]
German Customer…Service?
The Mann and I have lost count of the number of times we’ve stood in a store needing help, only to hear crickets because there is not a sales person anywhere in sight, and if they are in sight, they are most likely doing something else and mainly ignoring you. Your desperate pleas, begging, whimpering, [...]
Vuvuzela concert…or not
On Sunday morning, our tranquil breakfast on the balcony listening to the birds sing was punctured by the long bellowing of a child blowing a vuvuzela somewhere in the neighborhood. As if on cue, and somewhere nearer to us, another child answered with his own vuvuzela call. And there it was, throughout the neighborhood, calling [...]
Tell me about…windows*
I am admittedly fussy about the temperature. I neither like it too hot or too cold; thus, spring and fall are my favorite seasons. Germany generally has very comfortable temperatures for me. When I moved here, I was a bit worried about the summer to come and the prospect of spending it without air conditioning. [...]
NPR = Not Practical Reading?
So yesterday I was perusing my usual European news sources, which are full of articles and discussions about the G8/G20 summits and about the World Cup. Articles which are prominently displayed on their websites’ front pages. This one about the U.S.’s crazy deficit spending and its trying to bully other countries like Germany into doing [...]
Hey. Germany.
We need to have a talk. I thought we were so over this. I mean, come on. 50 degrees (F) today? And basically two relentless weeks of chilly temperatures and scowling, grey skies? Just so you know, I’m wearing sweaters and coats. Back home I’d be sweating and wearing skirts and sandals by now. I’m [...]
Havoc in Höscht
Somehow we managed to overlook the severity of the seriously deadly storm that was barreling towards Germany yesterday as we took a field trip to Höscht, an awesome neighborhood in western Frankfurt. A brilliantly sunny, albeit incredibly windy, morning lured us out. But by the time we arrived in Höscht, the sky had rapidly turned [...]
Welcome to Culture Shock
Yesterday I didn’t feel well. I felt exhausted and had a headache that only worsened throughout the day, along with my level of frustration. By last night I felt frustrated by a great many things, and I was in a rare, foul mood. This morning I did not want to wake up. I felt heavy [...]
An Olympic-Sized Heimweh
Sigh. So far in my German adventure I have only felt minor pangs of heimweh (homesickness) for America. But the kick-off of the winter Olympics this weekend has really made the heimweh rather acute right now. I’m one of those people who really love watching the Olympics, and yeah, I even get a little choked [...]
I'm a Europhile living with my German boyfriend ("The Mann") and splitting my time between Cologne and the Frankfurt area, Germany.
