Life--Act 3: 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: