There's No Place Like Home...No Matter Where Home Is

When you return to a place you have called home after a long absence, things always look a little different. I am back in Germany after a 6-month absence and have returned to the Munich Residence Inn where my husband and I lived for two months last fall. I know it’s funny to say that you live at hotel, but when you’re in a place for longer than a week (according to my arbitrary designation) it becomes the place you live, even if it’s only temporary. When we arrived last week, there was so much that was familiar, and yet many things were also different. To make it easy, I have compiled a list:

• Upon our arrival at the train station, there were all the familiar shops and smells of freshly baked bread, pastries and lamb roasting on a spit (ahhh, the Dönerkebabs!), but there was also a new place, one that sold BURRITOS (which are few and far between)! We have hesitated to try it out, because last fall we went to a Mexican restaurant that was highly rated on Yelp but were sorely disappointed by it.
  
  
  
• People were still waiting patiently on street corners for the green walk sign before crossing the street, even if there were no cars coming in either direction. We, however, have brought our flagrant American ways with us and boldly cross when no one is coming.
• We are back on the 5th floor of the hotel (which really means the 6th floor because of how Europeans number their floors), but we are on the side so we have a different view of the courtyard than we did last fall. Also, some of the same front desk workers are still here and so it was like seeing old friends again. But there are also quite a few new employees as well.
  
  
  
• Everything is SO GREEN here--almost impossibly green! Given how much it’s rained the last few days, however, I guess it does seem possible. We came in time to see all the leaves turn colors last year and when we left, all the trees were barren.
  
  
  
• It was always dark when Joel came home from work at 6, but there is so much more daylight now; the sun rises at 5:30am and sets at 9pm.
• Maybe I was imagining it last fall, but people seemed much more closed off and less friendly on the streets. But yesterday when the sun was shining all day, there were several elderly Fraus who actually smiled at me on the street and on the trams. and wherever there was sunshine on a patch of grass, people were lying down soaking it in (often removing most of their clothes first, completely unconcerned about it being a very small park near a busy street, or surrounded by people in the English Gardens).
• I have been on a couple of longer runs since we’ve been here and am loving the beautiful paths along the Isar River. They were covered in crunchy leaves last fall, but are now covered with spring green growth.
  
  
  
  
  
  

So those are a few quick impressions of "coming home" to Munich this time. Our children are all coming out next week and we look forward to showing them around our second home, so stay tuned for more travel adventures!

Late Night Musings of a Restless Mind

Usually I sleep pretty well, which is a blessing for a woman over 50. And thanks to seasonal allergies and Benadryl, I’ve slept especially well lately. 20 years ago, we had children who physically woke us up almost every night. I swear they had a secret schedule planned out to take turns having a nightmare or a stomach ache just so that we never got a complete night’s sleep. Our children don’t live with us anymore, but thoughts of them will sometimes wake me up in the night. They are usually vague, swirling worries in the back of my mind about whatever they happen to be struggling with at the time.

Last night was one of those nights. I was really tired when I went to bed and fell right to sleep, but when 2:30 rolled around I found myself stuck in a mental feedback loop unable to get back to sleep. My children are all at a sort of crossroads in their lives right now, with my oldest graduating from college and looking for a job, my next one thinking ahead to her graduation in December and my youngest just plain struggling to make it through his classes (and since he seems fairly unconcerned about his future, I figure someone should worry about it, right?). When these worries wake me up, I find it best to just get up and do one of two things to clear my mind. Sometimes I do what I call a “brain dump” where I write down everything I’m worrying about and that sort of transfers the words from my brain to the computer and allows me to fall back to sleep peacefully. The other way to clear my mind is to get up and read from the Bible or the Book of Mormon, because reading the scriptures always seems to help put my worries in perspective and remind me that there is a loving God that is watching over both me and my family. Last night I did both of these and then went back to bed and got the 2 extra hours of sleep that I needed.

It's funny to me that when I wake up in the mornings and re-read my "brain dump" from the middle of the night, whatever it was that was keeping me awake a few hours earlier doesn't seem quite so urgent or worrisome or important. There's probably some neurological explanation about this related to our conscious and unconscious minds, but I see it more as a form of mental sleepwalking. My body is perfectly comfortable lying in bed, but my mind insists on pacing the floor and walking in circles. After I had gotten up and taken my mind and body both for a little "walk" in the night, I laid back down in bed and told myself these words: "I am enough. I have enough. I do enough. Now rest." And drifted back to sleep.

What makes a house a home?

I just got back from a 10-day trip to Utah this week and, since Joel’s in Germany, I came home to an empty house. This was the first time I’ve come home from a trip to our new house and I found myself trying to remember, that first night back, where the silverware drawer was and where the cups were, like it was only another house that I was visiting. We’ve been in this house for 7 weeks now and it is starting to feel like our home, but it has got me thinking about just what it is that makes a house a home.

The first night we spent in our new home, I remember waking up in the night, trying to remember where the bathroom was and feeling like I was in just another (really messy) hotel room (wait a second--it still looks like a really messy hotel room…). That first week of unpacking was tough because it seemed like every box I opened had stuff in it that led to another box, which led me to another box, until I felt like I was going in circles. But we ploughed through trying to find new places for our old stuff, and occasionally I’d find a treasure in a box--meaning I knew I had mattress pads for all the beds and towels for all the bathrooms, but they had been put in random boxes for one reason or another and then would just magically appear.

We managed to get things set up in the first week to be mostly functional when our kids came home from college. We were excited for them to see the new house, but their initial reaction was more like “this is not really our home.” But they were troopers, and my daughter even spent the first night here setting up some of the Christmas decorations so that we weren’t complete Scrooges. That was the first thing that started to make it seem like our home.

My 86-year-old mom also braved the cold weather and flew from St. George, Utah, to be with us for Christmas, and she enjoyed just being able to sit in our new, sun-filled great room and read and watch all of us come and go and work to get as much as we could unpacked. Just having that memory of her here in our home makes me smile and be glad that she was willing to make such a big, physical effort to be with us (because travelling is tiring even when you’re not 86 and unused to high altitude).

The next thing that helped it feel like a home was having our friends come over for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner/nativity reading/Christmas music performances. The house was filled with more than 30 people who were all eating and talking and laughing and there was plenty of room for everyone (in past years, our tiny galley kitchen would usually be uncomfortably crammed with too many people). We always took extra care to help people to feel comfortable in our old home, and now we were seeing that happen in our new home too.

Not only did we change one house for another, though, we also had to get used to new people at church. I didn’t know how disorienting it would feel to go to church with people who don’t know me or know my background. I had been going to church in the same building and with (some) of the same people for the last 26 years, but now we are in a different building  with only a few familiar faces of people who had lived briefly in our old ward several years ago. We are only 5 miles from our old house, but it feels like an entirely new world. So I’m learning how to think about who I am right now, without letting my past experiences and service at church define me. I still have my old friends and see them regularly. But not as often as before, because we live a little farther away--we’re not truly “neighbors” anymore, the kind that can just pop in because they’re driving by and see your car in the driveway. And new relationships take time to build. Meeting someone once doesn’t make you besties. Time spent together, experiences shared together, feeling accepted and understood by someone--those are the things that make true, lasting friendships.

So after all this rambling, I’ve decided that it is time that makes a house a home--the time to create new memories of shared experiences. Spend enough time in a place, like the Residence Inn in Munich, or a friend’s basement (while you’re waiting for your house to be built), or a house for 20 years, and that will become your home. But given enough time, new and unfamiliar places can start to feel like home too. I’m grateful for every morning that I have in my new house, for each new day of learning and working and feeling more at home.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye…

Well, our bags are packed (full of way too much chocolate) and it's time to say goodbye. Joel and I went for our last run this morning and then I spent the day packing and taking a last walk through the city we’ve lived in for the last 6 ½ weeks. I realized that I’ve never been gone this long from Colorado in the 26 years that we’ve lived there. It’s been a great experience, but now I’m ready to go home. When we first arrived, autumn had just begun, and now we’re well on our way to winter. This is how I know that a significant amount of time has passed--on our first day, the courtyard outside our hotel looked like this. 

And this is what the courtyard looked like 6 weeks later.

Here are some other ways I know I’ve been here for a considerable amount of time:

• My German has progressed enough that this week I made it through a two-hour dinner with a German friend speaking only German. I’m still far from fluent, however, as was abundantly clear when we went to see a version of The Magic Flute on Monday that had a lot of narration. I was only able to follow the gist of it because I knew the story already and was basically useless as a translator for Joel.  
  
  
  
• I’ve been around long enough that I’ve started to blend in. Evidence? The nice frau in front of me in line at the grocery store today, who assumed I was German and started talking to me. Fortunately, it was the kind of talking that only required a smile and a laugh, and an occasional “Genau” (“exactly”--Germans use this word in almost every conversation). After 6 weeks of being forced to preplan what I might need to say at a store or a restaurant, I won’t be surprised if I start making conversation with perfect strangers when I’m home, just because I can. 
•  I said goodbye today to the exceptionally clean Isar river and realized there were no leaves left on any of the trees. In just 2 months, I saw them through from green leaves to their raucous bursts of color to the barren branch phase. It is beautiful in a different way now, with branches like black lace reflected on the water. 
  
• I now think it is normal to see lots of people smoking on the streets. I don’t know if there really are more smokers, or if I just see more of them because I’m primarily a pedestrian here and people can’t smoke in indoor public places like restaurants, stores and trains. I will NOT miss this.
• I also think it’s normal that people strictly obey the walk/don’t walk signs at crosswalks—Germans aso very obedient. This sign reminds people that it’s important to set an example for the children.
  
• And it’s also normal to stand on the right side of an escalator and leave the left side open for people who prefer to walk on an escalator. The Germans are very efficient about this.
• I’ve learned to expect potatoes of some sort at every meal. However I rarely eat potatoes at home and can’t wait to be reunited with my Nutribullet and start having my green smoothies again for breakfast. And I am overjoyed to be able to cook in a real kitchen again very soon, where cooking Thanksgiving dinner for my family will be a delight.

 After so many huge changes during the summer, it was nice to think of our room at the Residence Inn as our home and we were able to settle in and let the dust accumulate in the corners of our minds, so to speak. I know the city and the transportation system and when I come back, it will feel like visiting an old friend, which is just how it should feel when you’ve lived somewhere this long. We have just 3 more weeks before we will be able to move in to our new house and finally begin the next phase of this empty-nest life. Bring it on, baby.

Life on the 5th Floor--Ordinary Days

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the difference between living in Germany and being a tourist in Germany. The key seems to be that when you live in a place, you necessarily have to have the mundane parts of ordinary life because not every day can be spectacular and amazing just because you’re living in a foreign country. It's frankly just too tiring, both mentally and physically. Think about it--if you had to put as much effort into planning every day for two months the way you do when you are planning a vacation, you would collapse into a heap of exhaustion every night. Of course, even an "ordinary" day here usually requires a great deal of walking (as mentioned in last week's post), so collapsing is a common occurrence here.

Likely these thoughts have come to the foreground because I came down with a cold last week and so spent a couple of days resting so I could recover faster. Thursday and Friday last week were basically spent napping and watching Netflix and crocheting hats, in spite of perfectly amazing blue skies and 65 degree weather which I could only enjoy from my windows.

Because I didn’t have the energy to put into planning a weekend outing, we decided to pay someone else to do it, so on Saturday we took a day tour to Neuschwanstein and they took care of buying the train tickets and told us where to eat and narrated the history of the beautiful castles there and King Ludwig II’s tragic life. Joel and I had been there before--over 10 years ago--but we didn’t go inside the castle at that time (choosing instead to rent bikes and ride through the picturesque countryside), so this was a good trip to take under the circumstances. It was a beautiful, short-sleeve kind of day and we thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

Sunday we went to church in the English-speaking ward here (the last few weeks we went to the German ward because it was closer) and then ate dinner with the woman I had lived with for the summer when I was here 30 years ago. She fed us a wonderfully delicious German dinner, with a chicken knödel soup (a knödel is like a dumpling), semmel knödel covered with turkey and gravy, blaukraut (also called rotkohl, or red cabbage), and green salad, with fruit quark (a creamy yogurt-like food, only better) for dessert.

I have seen most of the major sites here, so I thought it would be good to take some pictures of ordinary things that most people don’t think about until they come here. Here’s a sampling:

• I have seen more mail carriers delivering mail on bright yellow bikes than in the bright yellow Post vans.
  
  
  
• A typical street has rows of 6-story buildings on it. I don’t know if it’s a law, or if that’s just how it’s done here. Even when there are businesses on the street level, there are usually apartments on the floors above. Most apartment buildings have courtyards in the middle (like the one I see from my window) where children can play and it’s generally treated like a communal backyard.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Some of the street signs and general building signs that rely on pictures rather than words were a little confusing at first, like this one that tells you this is a building exit (not that you should attack these people).
  
  
  
• Every few blocks there seem to be playgrounds for the children of the neighborhood. Families are clearly very important.
  
  
  
• Dogs are also very important. They are everywhere and businesses will leave out water dishes in front of their stores and if the dogs aren’t allowed in a store (very rare, but I think most grocery stores don’t allow dogs) they often provide a “hitching post” where you can tie your dog leash. I got to hold and pet a friend’s dog this week (who went shopping and to lunch with us), and that made me miss our own recently-departed schnauzer.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Public transportation is amazing, which is why you don’t really need a car. You can get anywhere in the city by bus, tram, subway (the U-bahn, which is only underground), or train (the S-bahn, which goes both underground and above ground). A bike would definitely be useful here, though. Bikes are everywhere--most of the sidewalks have a lane designated specifically for bikes (and bikers ring their bells--like honking a car horn, but more annoying--at you if you are walking in that lane). Also, there are several pedestrian shopping zones throughout the city where no cars are allowed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Life on the 5th Floor--One Step at a Time

I have a Garmin Vivofit watch that measures my calories and steps each day. I’m a pretty active person, and before we came to Europe, I was averaging 10,000-12,000 steps a day. In the last 4 weeks that we’ve been in Germany, my average step count has increased to over 19,000 per day. I’m putting a heck of alot of miles on my shoes and enjoying every minute of it. We have been here for a month now, and only have a couple of weeks left. Time is passing quickly, one step at a time.

This last week’s routine of going to the grocery store each day and venturing into unexplored parts of Munich was interrupted by a brief trip to Switzerland. Joel had a business trip to another city in Germany, so I decided to spend the time with my brother in Zurich, where he and his family are living for the next 9 months. In years past, I would have travelled by train to Zurich, but there is an increasingly popular and much less expensive way to travel in Europe now--by bus. It cost me 34 euros, roundtrip, to travel there. In fact, it cost me more for two days of transportation within Zurich and the outlying area where my brother lives than it did to get to Zurich and back. We spent the time going for long walks and runs in the beautiful autumn leaves, walking around Zurich and window shopping (alas, I could not afford the sweaters and jeans for 1000 Francs, a woman’s wool coat for 3,000 Francs nor even a watch for a “mere” 145,000 Francs). It was really nice to be around family and I didn’t feel as lonely this week.

I got a haircut last week, which was also out of the ordinary. My hair grows really fast and I knew I would not make it mentally (only women with short hair develop such impatience) another 3 weeks if I didn’t get it cut, so I got a recommendation from one of the front desk workers for a salon near the hotel and made the appointment online. I practiced what to say in German and had to look up some vocab words I wouldn’t normally use (like how to say “I just want about a half-centimeter off the ends”), which was good because they didn’t really speak English. I was a little alarmed at how confidently he started hacking off about twice as much as I told him to take off, but my hair felt much better when he was done and it turned out just fine. I was not brave enough to get my hair colored, however, and will live with my gray roots until I get back and let my regular stylist take care of them. Ah, the vanity of the 51-year-old woman that makes a haircut the week’s highlight.

Other (more interesting, I hope) highlights from the week:

• On Saturday, the sun came out in the afternoon and so we took advantage of it. We visited the Schloss Nymphenburg and the beautiful grounds all around it. We went back to the park by the river where we had gone running in the morning (when it was cloudy) and took these photos of the magical autumn kingdom it had become with just the addition of sunshine.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• We saw dozens of teenagers on the subway, all dressed up for Halloween on Saturday night. As far as I can tell, they don’t really trick or treat, but they were clearly dressed up and headed somewhere. Halloween has definitely invaded here (all the stores had costumes and decorations for sale) in the last few years--there was nothing like this 30 years ago when I was here.
• I exercised and studied and did laundry and tried cooking a one-skillet chicken dinner with a lemon cream sauce in our tiny kitchen. It tasted great, but I wouldn’t advise any of you to cook with onions and garlic in the same room that you sleep in. Needless to say, we slept with the window open that night and were grateful our clothes didn’t all smell like fried food the next day. I will stick to omelettes, soups and salads for the next two weeks.
• I saw this headline on the CNN app a few days ago: “Thick Fog Shrouds European Cities.” There’s been fog every morning for the last week in Munich and I thought it was just a Munich thing, but then it was the same in Zurich. And apparently London and Paris and lots of other cities across Europe. So I didn’t feel so bad knowing there were countries full of people who had likely all been experiencing morning gloom along with me.
  
  
  
• I visited a couple of palaces last week where I saw dozens of ornately decorated rooms filled with enchanting (and sometimes forbidding) portraits and elaborately, carved furniture and I marveled at the talents that created such beauty. It was also strange to think that these buildings were once someone’s home. But then who am I to talk—I live in hotel. I came away being very grateful I didn’t have to live in a palace, though, and am looking forward to my own new home more than ever.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Life on the 5th Floor--Call me "Eloise"

Living in a hotel is the new normal. I’ve never read the book (though feel I must when I return home), but I keep thinking about Eloise at the Plaza, the children’s book about the little girl that lives “in a room on the tippy-top floor” of the Plaza Hotel in New York City with her nanny and her dog and all of the great adventures she has. My life on the 5th floor of the Residence Inn in Munich is likely not nearly as exciting as Eloise’s (probably because I don’t have a nanny or a dog), but it’s at least eventful enough for me to write about in a blog.

We just finished week 3 here in Deutschland and I’ve been here long enough now to sort of get into a routine. I eat breakfast (usually sticking with Muesli, yogurt, fruit and a sunflower seed roll with butter and jam), I exercise (run or do a DVD workout, or sometimes both--depending on the previous day's level of chocolate consumption), I study my nutrition course I’m doing online, and then I do whatever else I need or want to that day. I have a list of sights that I want to see in Munich and try and do a couple of those each week. And, in true German fashion, I go to a grocery store pretty much every day.

After hiding itself the first two weeks, the sun finally came out and has made a regular appearance each day. The first day it came out last week, I went for a two hour walk around the city just to be outside in the sunshine. It was glorious. The weekend was especially beautiful, with blue skies and the autumn colors at their peak, so Joel and I were able to get out and see a lot of the city, walking 11 miles that day. The leaves were positively glowing and it was hard to resist taking an inordinate number of pictures. We ate lunch in the Biergarten in the middle of the Englischer Garten (their Central Park) and went to the top of the Olympic tower where we ate divine apple strudel in a revolving restaurant that gave us a 360 degree view of the city.

To avoid a blow-by-blow description (which no one wants or has time to read), here are a few highlights of the last week:

• Visiting a new grocery store is always exciting. Today I went to an organic grocery store where I saw Sauerkraut juice and Potato juice. Yes, you heard me right. I did not buy any.
• I went to our friend’s apartment last week and we made pumpkin soup from scratch, using a cantaloupe-sized pumpkin that did not require peeling, and chocolate chip cookies (her request). It was nice to cook something besides omelettes and soup from mixes--I miss having a real kitchen with an oven. But on the other hand, I get to eat out and taste amazing foods, including potatoes prepared in an incredible variety of ways and authentic Italian pizzas baked in wood-fired brick ovens.
• I know most of the hotel desk workers by name now and I’m getting used to walking the equivalent of two miles up and down the stairs on wash day (the laundry’s in the basement). This is why we are building a one-level home.
• I am alone most of the day, and sometimes (though not all the time) I feel lonely. Which, under the circumstances, is perfectly natural. So I’ve been trying to just acknowledge that feeling and accept it (sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't). When so much of my life up to this point has been focussed on serving others, it’s really strange to not have the physical ability each day to interact with close friends and family. I do what I can through emails, Facebook, texts and phone calls, but the distance separating me from loved ones feels like a tangible thing.
• A couple of afternoons this week I mixed my cultures by bingeing on some Netflix series (American) while crocheting hats (German). Since I can't quilt while I'm here, I've had to make do with crocheting, which is fine because I’ve seen a lot more yarn stores here than fabric stores. The fabric I have found was super expensive--18 euros a meter (about $20 a yard)--so I didn’t buy any.
• We spent a lovely evening with the family of one of Joel’s co-workers at their house. The have 3 small children who reminded us so much of our 3 children when they were small. Except these children spoke German. But they were just as excited to meet new people as ours were back then. They all understood English (even the 3-year-old) because their father speaks it to them all the time, and the oldest (10 years old) spoke pretty good English, which impressed me because English is a really hard language to learn (so many dang exceptions!).
• We ate dinner with one of my friends that I met 30 years ago when I lived here in Munich for a summer, working in a grocery store selling fruits and vegetables. I realized we were the same age when we first met that our children are now, and felt suddenly confused, because I don't remember getting older and yet, here we are, more than twice as old as we when we first met.
• We went to a street fair on Friday night where there were booths selling all kinds of things--soap, socks, scarves, lederhosen, dirndls, pots, pans and beautiful dishes for the kitchen. There were also delicious foods, as well as many dogs, including this little lederhosen-clad fellow:

He didn't look very comfortable, though.

I love the sound of church bells here. This was at the street fair.

Beautiful trees and cheesy grins on our Saturday of sunshine

Leaf-strewn sidewalks

The Biergarten by the Chinese tower (no idea why there's a Chinese tower 

in the middle of the Biergarten, but there you have it)

A stream running through the English Gardens

Radiance!

The best apple strudel I've had yet on this trip, 

surrounded by a delectable pool of vanilla sauce. 

The Olympic tower, built for the 1972 Olympics

View from the Alte Peter church tower in the downtown

The glockenspiel on the Marienplatz