Wow, we've been in Germany for over three months now! Some days it feels much longer than that, but I think I'm finally settling in a bit. Of course, just by writing that I could jinx myself and cause something to happen that would derail all the progress I've made going through culture shock. Though the cause of most of my discomfort and frustration was not being able to speak
any German (oh, we got yelled at a number times because "If you are living in Germany, you must speak German!" Yeah, I know, I just effing moved here and am trying to learn) but at least now I start typical day to day conversations in German thanks to our language class. I say "start" because as soon as Germans hear my American accent, they are usually more than happy to respond in my native tongue and see it as a way of practicing their English. This does not result in many occasions to practice my German out in the real world, but it is convenient. Eh, my lack of practice could also be attributed to the fact that I tend to stay in "safe" conversational situations. And actually, most of the Germans that I have met are extremely helpful to cluing us in on key German phrases and regional pronunciation.
We moved into our apartment in the middle of October and it finally has that feeling of being a home. We had so many things that we needed to buy and install for it to feel like people actually lived here. While it's not quite "cozy" yet, it is picture ready and I'll post a tour of the apartment soon. I even "decorated" for Christmas with a 1.5 ft fake tree. It's adooorable. And yes, the kitchen is in and wonderful!
While Josh is at work I have also been keeping kind of busy. In October I signed on to help the Deutsch-American Institute as a volunteer with their high school Battle of the Books. It's a reading challenge among area high school teams that focuses on American literature. There are 10 novels in English that each team must read and in February there is a question and answer competition covering the content of these books among all the teams. What I have been doing is reading the books and writing questions for the competition. Starting next week and continuing through January I'll be going out to the schools to go over the competition rules and discuss the books with the teams. It's a fun project and the other people working on it are great! And I just got a freelance gig helping German PhD students edit English language articles for a publication.
We also have a few trips coming up! We're going to Berlin for a few nights between Christmas and New Years. So many museums and restaurants...it'll be good. After our favorite band, the Decemberists, released their tour dates a few weeks ago we scheduled a trip to Amsterdam in March. It's somewhere we have wanted to go, and seeing excellent band is a great excuse to make it happen. I think we are going to try for a long February weekend in Prague as well. A nice little winter. However, this spring we are set to make our first visit home! We'll be at various locations along the west coast for the last half of April. More specifically,
we'll be home in Portland for a few days during the last week of April. I had hoped to watch the Blazers in the playoffs, but yikes...
So do Josh and I like living in Germany? Yeah! Some things are a struggle to get used to and there is still a major language barrier and a minor cultural barrier, but yes it has been a great experience so far. I miss the U.S. and all the people there that I love, but three years in Europe will fly by. So please, come visit us while you can! *wink*
And finally, I appreciate all the nice and encouraging comments I've received about this blog! Thank you so much for reading it and understanding my laziness surrounding timely and frequent posts. Love you all!
