Today I had the pleasure helping my son with his German homework. Since my husband and I are both German we want our kids to know German as well. The Bay Area has actually a pretty large German community and we do have a local German school with after school German classes. I would say we are lucky – my son probably not so much. We do speak German at home but it is not an easy language and I realize more and more that there are certain aspects that get lost. Today homework was to correct German proverbs: One of my most memorable of the list was “Der Appetit kommt beim Lernen” corrected to “Der Appetit kommt beim Essen”. It means that the appetite will come with the meal. It was used a lot when I was a kid and we did not like lunch or dinner – we had to eat in anyway. I guess I am not telling him that often enough (what does not mean that he likes everything – quite the contrary actually), because he had no idea what I was talking about. I actually like the idea of using it as “The appetite comes with learning” (what was the “wrong sentence”). It makes as much sense to me in this context. I keep telling myself that one day he will thank me.
Another good one: Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund. – The early morning hour has gold in its mouth.
It basically means that if you get started early you will come across the best opportunities. Similar to the early bird catches the worm. I do like proverbs and a lot are stuck in my head even if I don’t use them as much anymore. I feel like these are harder to learn in a different language since they are usually not meant literally. They are so cool though. Do you have a favorite one?
After living in the US for 19 years now there are very few things these days that surprise or annoy me but there are two things I still can’t get used to. If you are from the US please do not take this personally. I think that most likely you can find something in any country that would annoy you. For example I find it annoying in Germany that you can’t turn right when the traffic light is red period (unless there is a green right arrow attached to the corner, what almost never is the case). A prerequisite would be that you know differently. Maybe there even would be something that is different when moving to another state? When we first moved here I came across differences almost every day and I constantly compared. I don’t even remember anymore when I stopped doing this. One difference I recently noticed when being in Germany is that plastic caps now stay attached to the bottle. Of course you can unscrew them but they will stay attached on a little corner. It took me some getting used to but you don’t have lids rolling to the ground. This already brings me to one of my annoyances:
Packaging – this is an ongoing joke in our household. Some packaging is so hard to remove. Especially food packaging seems to be designed in a way to make scissors or a knife necessary or makes such a big mess when you trying to open it. Why? Should it not be possible to design it in a way that it actually works for you instead of against you?
The second one is toilette paper – why in the world is it only 2- layers? I am fully aware that I can fold it up and get more layers but really? If you have ever been to Germany maybe you know what I mean. I am not sure how it is in the rest of Europe but 3- or even 4-layer toilette paper is pretty standard. My husband was very excited the other day because he found one with 3-layers – it ended up being so flimsy that it the 2 versus 3 did not make a difference. Maybe it is time for a bidet?
That’s it for today. Do you have anything like that? Anything weird to you that you noticed while traveling?
The best thing, that happened so far this week, was that my Secret Santa package arrived. Who knows me, knows that I love surprises, and I honestly already forgot about it. I am thankful that San from the in between is mine organized this again.
Other than that life has been busy with work, getting ready for Christmas including sending out cards, wrapping presents, putting things on various piles to take along on our trip to see family in Germany and in general just make it through the last week of school. I can tell my kids need the break. There is one more concert for each child and then we can breath for two weeks. The only thing left to decide is if we take an Uber to the airport, park there or take public transit (I think it is coming down to Uber since parking for two weeks is not cheap either) and if we are doing a pre-christmas gift exchange at home or if we wait. I kind of like the idea of doing it before. That way I don’t have to pack any of our own presents (except a special one that the kids can use on the way). There will be enough things to bring back as is. I maybe should be making a list of things I want to buy when we are there. I am curious, is there anything you would think a typical souvenir you would bring back with you? For us it’s mostly sweets (the Haribo selection at the supermarkets is insane), tea (herbal and fruit teas mostly), vitamin tablets that dissolve in water (I never understood why in Germany they sell for one Euro for a role of 20, whereas here you can pay $1 for one serving), mustard and maybe some salad dressing powder. The days where we brought back tooth paste and dried sauce packages are over mostly. I always found it interesting that my SIL will buy tooth paste in the US ever since she spend a year as an Au-pair in the country.
How are you doing with your holiday preparations or are you already right in the middle of it?
I already mentioned yesterday that we went shopping at ALDI. That I mention it again today should tell you how excited I was about the whole experience. We don’t have one close by so this was really a treat for me. I do find some of the German products at World Market or other fancier grocery stores but the price tag often times is a little painful to look at. Not so at Aldi. Even in Germany they are particularly known for their good prices. I thought it particularly funny this morning when I picked up a USA today newspaper in the hotel lobby and they had a big article about “Aldi deals”. There was a whole section about how to shop there. One difference is that you have to put 25 cents in the cart to unlock it before you can take it into the store. You will get it back when you bring back your cart and attach it to another one – so they don’t need to pay anyone to collect carts. They will also not bag your groceries. I think my husband is officially Americanized because he was very confused at check out. They had an empty cart waiting at the end of the register and everything goes straight in there – so your cart gets exchanged with a different one. From there on you are responsible to carry your groceries away. This is a step up from the German Aldi experience. You are responsible for getting your groceries in the cart and the cashiers there are so fast that it can get quite stressful as your groceries pile higher and higher in front of you and before you know it you will be asked to pay. It’s basically the exact opposite what you are used to in the US. I still remember one of the supermarket chains tried to introduce bagging but no-one wanted it in Germany. My mom was one of the very appalled shoppers, too.
The good news is that the drive home today was fairly quick. I already washed three loads of laundry and tomorrow it is back to work and school. I hope that you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and were able to spend some quality time with family before the holiday season really kicks in. I am going to spend the week reminding myself that I have everything under control.
This is going to hopefully answer another set of questions I received: I’d love to know more about how you feel about living in the States. Why did you decide to stay here instead of going back to Germany? What surprises you about living here? Are you ever planning on moving back to Europe?
Walk in Berkley’s Tilden Park in 2005
I guess I should start all the way back in 2005 when we first moved here. Back then it was pretty common to do a postdoc in the US if someone wants to work in academia (my husband). We came here with every intention to leave again and go back “home” to Germany or at least Europe after those 3-5 years that mentioned postdoc work was complete (is it ever though?). Never in my life would I have thought I would move to the US one day. I got on my first flight in my late 20s and the farthest away from home I moved was in the next bigger city (Hannover) which is only an hour away from my hometown.
It so happened that my husband was offered a really great opportunity where he did his postdoc that was not that easy to beat – and so it happened that we stayed longer than the 5 years planned. I still considered myself an expatriate – a person who lives outside their native country – and I still thought we would move back eventually. We had our kids in 2008 and 2011, they started daycare, preschool, school and before we knew it they are half grown. I had a really rough time in stretches because I don’t like living so far away from family but I also knew that if we moved back just because I pushed really hard and my husband would take a job he would not be happy with just to make me happy that would not go well either. So far it was just all coincident that we stayed (at least in my thinking). In 2018 we decided to move to a bigger house and ended up talking to a realtor to also look at houses to buy. That also made us talk about how we imagined our life to go in the next couple of years/decades to come. I think that was the point when the realization set in that we were here to stay and it helped me to settle this in my mind, too. So stepping into our very own house we became immigrants I guess – people who come to live permanently in a foreign country. Yes, it is a better career for my husband but also for me the work I am doing at the University offers better pay and more appreciation I could ever expect in Germany. After having visas and then green-cards all these years we applied first to keep our German citizenship and then also applied for the US citizenship. We were able to vote in the 2020 election for the first time and it felt so good to have a say in what happens in the country we call home now, too. I am still not ruling out that we move back at some point or back to Europe in general but I think we will stay for sure until the kids finish high school. They know German but they only know Germany from our summer visits and it would be hard on them now. You can have a really good life in Germany but we also have a really good life here. We are fortunate enough that we have good salaries, good retirement through our jobs and health insurance.
One thing that really surprised me is how international it is where we live. Since UC Berkeley and I guess the whole Bay Area attracts so many international students and workers it makes it very diverse and colorful. I have friends from Ukraine, Mexico, Brazil, France, Argentina and my kids went to a daycare run by an American-Japanese family. That is something I would miss would we move back to Germany. A couple of other things I was surprised about:
Most restaurants closed at 9pm – why so early?
You finish eating and you will get the check right away – sometimes even before that. This really took some getting used to.
Learning English 9 years and then using the language every day are two very different things (subtitles were my friend and it really helped to get used to it).
You always have to add the tax to the prices.
How great the park system is. Besides the National Parks there are so many state parks.
I am pretty sure there are more that I don’t remember right now.
Are we ever moving back to Europe? I honestly don’t know. Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. It may depend where the kids end up? When I learned something in all this then it is that you can make plans and than life ends up completely different and not in a bad way at all. We very likely would have a reverse culture shock by now since time did not stand still over in Europe either. I hope that by the time we retire we still have some time to explore the world. A lot of our free time is spend with visiting family and exploring the US a little closer to home during the shorter breaks.
Did you end up in a place close to your family or do you happen to live far away, too? Are you planning to move in the coming years or do you think you will stay put?
One reason I was reluctant to sign up for NaBloPoMo was that I already knew I would be traveling to Germany for a week. My dad is getting ready to move out of my childhood home and his home for over 50 years and I promised I help a bit. So the next days will be filled with sorting, deciding what will be packed to go with him, Sorting through the last remaining things I want to keep and saying good bye to my home town (more on this to come in another post).
Solo travel feels very special to me as I usually never get to do it these days. It involves quite a bit of planning ahead since I am the family organizer. I keep telling myself they will manage without me.
Back to travel day: Bags were packed the day before so everything was ready to go besides the last chargers and some food in case the airline falls short. I left the house at 10am to be driven to the Bart station. Luckily the next train went straight to SFO so I did not have to change. I got there at 11:30am and only had to drop of my checked bags. Isn’t it amazing you can do most everything online now? It’s a nightmare for my 80 year old dad but I do appreciate not having to stay in line for an hour (or longer) to check in. By noon I was through security and went on a search for some lunch. At SFO we somehow always end up at the domestic terminal for that even flying internationally. Boarding started on time at 1:50pm. The flight was supposed to leave at 2:40pm but to no big surprise it took a little longer as we were still waiting for some passengers.
The flight itself was pretty uneventful. I am not very hopeful about food on United flights but this time the chicken curry was edible. I always wonder why they even bother with the roles as I think they are pretty disgusting (sorry). The flight to Munich takes about 10 hours and I spend my time knitting, reading,watching movies and writing back and forth with my family about a lost ID card I was sure I saw in the living room the day before. Unfortunately sleep was a short hour or so. Arrival in Munich was at ~9:50am the following day (Nov. 3rd) and everything worked like a charm. Passport control was a breeze, the new gate was posted and it was not to far and after another hour sleep on the plane to Hannover we touched down at 12:55pm. The bag was collected and my dad picked me up from the airport, hurray.
The drive to my hometown Wietzen takes another hour and we stopped for a late lunch on the way.
Jaegerschnitzel mit Pommes (Schnitzel with a mushroom gravy and fries)
We were back in the door at around 3:40pm German and currently 7:40am West Coast time. If my calculation is correct it was 21 hours, 40 minutes this time with no special surprises.
I did take a quick nap because 2 hours of sleep and fell asleep again on the couch after dinner. Wish me luck I can sleep tonight because I don’t handle jetlag very well. Any advice on that? Maybe there is something I have not tried yet but mostly I go with the flow these days.
Do you often get to travel solo and do you manage to pack light?
Any advice on how to deal with saying goodbye to your childhood home?
I can’t believe how time flew by and now we already have December 24. The plan is to go on a short walk and then tonight we will sit down for our Christmas Eve dinner (German sausages and potato salad), 4 candles burning before we sit in front of the Christmas tree to unwrap presents. Did you know that in Germany you do the presents on the 24th instead of the 25th? There is no Santa coming down the chimney and no socks on the mantle – oh wait, we do have the socks on the mantle. I guess that’s what happens if you mix up the traditions.
Earlier this month I received my package from the Secret Santa Mug Swap that San from the in between is mine organized. I like little surprises so much and mug I received from @thecarolinaetc is so pretty, don’t you think?
World Market haul
To make our Christmas dinner I took the 30 minute trip to our closest World Market in the area. Regular hot dog sausages just won’t do for Christmas. Our local market which carried German products closed recently because the owners retired so longer car drive it was. The kids had fun, too I think since I asked them to pick the sweets. Pico Balla Haribo are our favorite. I was crying a little inside about the prices ($10 for a glass of sausage) but if it tastes a little like home that’s what it is. My son even found a present for his big sister: a magnetic hourglass what he thought was really cool (and I think she will, too).
GIngerbread honey cookies
Instead of writing blog posts I spend quite some time recently making cookies. We made our traditional gingerbread honey cookies twice because the first badge was finished in no time. Since cookie time is over I will save the recipe for next year and share it then but I am so happy I finally found a good recipe that will make your own gingerbread spice (in Germany they sell premixed spice packets for this and a lot of recipes ask for it).
I also made cinnamon stars, San’s Vanillekipferl, black and white cookies and another almod type cookie. We also made marzipan potatoes (no potato involved just powdered sugar and almond flower and cocoa powder mostly) which are not pictured. This morning I put a plate of our goodies together for everyone to enjoy throughout the day. I think we are ready for the holidays to come and I will make note of a couple future blog post ideas.
I wish you a very merry Christmas if you happen to celebrate and to everyone else: I hope you will enjoy a couple quiet days that will leave you refreshed for the days to come.
I am doing NaBloPoMo this month. 30 blog posts in 30 days. You can read more about it on San’s blog the in between is mine. #nablopomo2022
Lanterns at night
In the North of Germany November 10th is a special day. After dark kids will go from house to house sometimes with lanterns, sometimes without and sing a short song or recite a ‘poem’ (there are some very short ones that are more like trick-or-treat). In return they will receive candy (or fruit but mostly candy). It was my Halloween equivalent growing up (without the costumes).
In school I learned the story of St. Martin who (sitting on is horse) cut his coat in half with a sword to share it with a beggar in the middle of winter and that is why people now share candy with kids who ask for them (there was a whole song about it I and my friends learned one year). When I just looked it up I also learned that it is Martin Luther’s birthday (the priest who some may know from the protestant reformation).
Once again the tradition is much older than that though. In the Julian calendar it marked the beginning of winter and farm hands in the North were dismissed on that day. The families went from house to house and begged for gifts because they had to make it through the winter month without work.
There are a quite a few songs that every child in Germany knows that are about the lanterns the children carry. Lantern parades are a custom almost anywhere even though Martinssingen might not (I think that is specific to the northern part of Germany).
Ich geh mit meiner Laterne und meine Laterne mit mir. Dort oben leuchten die Sterne und unten leuchten wir.
I am walking with my lantern and my lantern walks with me. The stars blink up there We blink down here.
Sounds really odd in English – I definitely need more practice translating things 😉
Is there a custom in your part of your country that is specific to the area? I can’t come up with anything in California but then, I know little of the rest of the US.
The German preschool in town had their annual lantern parade last weekend. We did not go anymore but you can find those traditions in the US, too if you live in an area that has a German expat/immigration community and they will sing those same songs I learned as a kid. I crafted quite a few lanterns with my kids when they were younger.
Besides the Martinssingen there was also a separate lantern parade organized by the preschool in my home town each year. The voluntary fire department walked with us on our little walk around town (to extinguish the lantern that went up in flames – yes, we used real candles) and some of the older kids carried torches (what I thought was the coolest thing). Sometimes we also had musicians accompany us. I wonder if they still do this? Gets me a little nostalgic.
A North Sea beach at Cuxhaven (nice in summer and winter)
Friends of mine were asking me the other day, when would be the best time to visit Germany. I have not written anything for almost two years now but I thought it might come in handy if I wrote something about it down.
So, when is it a good time to visit Germany? I would say it depends what you want to do and if you have to stick to the school schedule.
We usually go in the summer since the kids are free for longer than two weeks (and we would have to organize camp otherwise), the cousins are off school, too, the days are longer and you can actually go outside without getting wet or cold (at least if you are lucky enough to catch a summery summer). We also went last winter for the holidays because we did not go in some time. Certainly long enough to make me forget how miserable winters can be. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with the family especially during the holidays (that’s why we went after all) and the Christmas markets and winter as an idea (curling up on the couch with a good book, candles and a hot tea, a fire in the oven – what else is there to do if it gets dark at ~4pm), but the weather usually really sucks. In our three weeks the sun came out on three days! Since the days are so short the jet lag seems even more painful. We are also not talking snow either but wet and cloudy. It sure reminded me how spoiled we are in the Bay Area where the weather almost always is good enough to go for a bike ride, hike or just out to play. I guess you can already tell I prefer going in the summer. But since we almost always go to hang out with family our situation is a little different. So, I am trying to be a little more objective:
Go in the spring or fall:
if you you want cheaper airfare (especially June – August and mid December- early January airfare can get steep)
good weather with less crowds (April, May, September and October) – attractions can get busy during the summer month when schools are out in Germany and booking might be easier as well since Germans tend to plan far in advance
For families with kids in school this might not be an option.
If you go in the summer:
weather is mostly nice
days are long
you can go to the pool and relax (no shouting at your kids because they are running, no serious checking on height restrictions on slides – just be responsible yourself)
go to the beach
enjoy nature, go for a hike or a walk or a bike ride
go to the beer garden
get an ice cream in a cafe
take a boat tour
walk the streets in old towns
everything is green
If you go in the winter:
days are short
go to museums
go for the food
go for the Christmas markets – some markets, especially in bigger cities, now stay open until after Christmas or even until New Year but some smaller ones (which can be really nice) happen before the school break starts
go for the snow (if you are lucky, more likely in southern Germany)
keep in mind that some attractions might close around the holidays (Christmas and New Year)
I am not saying that winters are always rainy but it is colder. I am also not saying summers are always great – we had some quite rainy summer vacations, but then you still can do all the things you can do during winter (except the Christmas markets). You might want to visit for Oktoberfest in Munich or the Carnival (about Carnival on Wikipedia). In the end you have to decide what works best for you.
I am curious: what would you want to see when visiting Germany?
Since September the kids keep asking me how much longer it takes until it is Halloween. But now pumpkin patch season is definitely here and the countdown is going. The visit to the pumpkin patch by now belongs to our getting-ready-for-Halloween tradition I would say. The last two years we went to a really nice one in Suisun City, California. A train from the Western Railway Museum will take you out to a pumpkin patch organized by the local Rotary Club. They have a hay stack with labyrinth, hay rides, games, pumpkin catapults, face painting, music and food among other things. The kids love it and we were planning to go again this weekend but now it looks like rain. It’s a real bummer but maybe the weather forecast will be wrong after all?
We already went to one pumpkin patch two weeks ago, so we won’t go without this year even if the rain keeps going. The Petaluma pumpkin patch has a corn maze and everyone was excited to make it through. They also had a big pumpkin field where you can pick your own pumpkins and a corn box for the kids to play with (they liked that part the best). It definitely was a lot of fun. I took so many pictures of sunflowers that day and feel like fall season is upon us.
I am not really sure how it is now but when we left Germany Halloween was not a very big deal there. Sure there were pumpkins and fall stuff but not related to Halloween but more to the harvest celebrations. By the way, how is that now? I seem to pick up more and more Jack-o-lantern pictures in my social media feed over the last couple of years. I am still not sure about the whole Halloween dressing up thing. Dressing up always makes me uncomfortable but I prefer Halloween to carnival (coming from someone who only wore black for a while in her youth). We still have two weeks left to decide what to do on the day and how to dress up. How about you? Do you carve a pumpkin or dress up for the day?
I am not really sure how it is now but when we left Germany Halloween was not a very big deal there. Sure there were pumpkins and fall stuff but not related to Halloween but more to the harvest celebrations. By the way, how is that now? I seem to pick up more and more Jack-o-lantern pictures in my social media feed over the last couple of years. I am still not sure about the whole Halloween dressing up thing. Dressing up always makes me uncomfortable but I prefer Halloween to carnival (coming from someone who only wore black for a while in her youth). We still have two weeks left to decide what to do on the day and how to dress up. How about you? Do you carve a pumpkin or dress up for the day?
Home here and there 