Happy Reunification Day! One of the best things about living abroad is adopting new holidays. Because who says, "I have enough holidays, thanks." Workaholics I guess? Anyway, October 3 known as German Unity Day here, and this holiday exists to commemorate the reunification of Eastern and Western Germany in 1990. I took some time this morning to ponder on what a monumental day this must have been for a country that was so formally divided for over four decades. I actually remember sitting in the living room watching a television broadcast of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was four years old, so I can imagine I was asking a multitude of questions, trying to understand why the grown-ups thought knocking down an ugly concrete wall was worth watching. I'm not really sure how the holiday is supposed to be celebrated, but it's finally October so baking some maple pumpkin doughnuts to go with my coffee sounded pretty good to me. The only downside of a German holiday on Monday is that this means shops are closed for two days in a row, since they are also closed every Sunday. So we will be heading into The Netherlands to do some fall shopping today, per my request of course. Fall came fast and hard, and I feel like winter is just around the corner, stealthily creeping around the shadows and ready to attack at any given moment. I spent all day yesterday cleaning and reorganizing my wardrobes because there is just no way to fit all seasons in two wardrobes. I packed up all my sundresses, tank tops, and sandals with a sigh, relegating them to the attic while dutifully exchanging that box for one filled with jackets and sweaters. It really feels like only a month ago when I first shoved this box up here, and now here I am dragging it back down.
My German language skills haven't improved much. A few days ago I was about to take the dog on a walk. I opened the door and almost jumped out of my skin because I did not expect two people to be standing in front of me, staring at me. They were two girls around the age of 12 though, so I quickly regained my composure when I realized this was probably not a flight-or-fight scenario. I assumed they were trying to sell something. I really don't know though because they began speaking in German and I didn't catch a single word. I just responded with, "Mein Deutsch ist nicht gut." This is the only phrase I have almost perfected. Strictly translated it means, "My German is not good." People typically go right to English when I say this, but in this case the girls just stared at me with wide eyes and didn't say anything. I know for a fact that kids here learn English at a very young age, so I followed that with a hopeful, "Sprechen sie English?" Nope. Still nothing but astonished faces. They finally just walked off. I felt bad so I said, "I'm sorry! Bye!" As if continuing to speak in English at this point would make anything better or less awkward. So I guess now I have a learned a new strategy for getting door-to-door solicitors to go away when we're back Stateside. "Sprechen sie, Deutsch? Nein? Auf weidersehen!"
I've accepted a job that is not at all related to my career field, because it's the only thing I could really find to do and make a little extra travel money. One of the requirements upon accepting the job was for me to attend a week-long training session in Mainz, Germany. So my thoughts were, "Oh, you're going to pay me to go on a trip? Okay I'll try this thing out I guess." When time came for the trip, I packed up the car (I talked Thomas into letting me take the Volkswagen for better gas mileage), plugged the address into the GPS, and embarked on solo adventure with great excitement. Based on looks alone, I definitely blend in on the roads here--a blond in a Volkswagen with German plates. Just another fearless German zooming by on the Autobahn? Nein. Not so much. I got lost trying to get on the Autobahn to even begin my journey. I don't even know how but I ended up getting on going to opposite direction I needed to. Maybe I should have waited to start that Audiobook until after I was on the highway. The narrator of my book was babbling on about who knows what, while my GPS navigator was screaming over him, "Recalculating! Recalculating! Exit right!" Okay, well maybe she wasn't screaming, but I had the volume turned up pretty loud and she is British. Everything sounds more urgent with a British accent. I lost my faith in her later though when the little arrow that was supposed to represent me on the screen suddenly jumped off the highway and was floating around in a forrest. She was trying to reroute me again of course, but this time I just ignored her and continued on, trying not to get run over each time I moved into the passing lane. They really will run you over here. I am absolutely certain. If you're trying to pass a car you better floor it while you're in the left lane because someone will be coming up on you in a matter of seconds. Not even kidding. I would be going close to 90 mph and cars were passing me so fast that my whole car would sway slightly each time they went by. Also, when you're on regular roads here they don't use yellow lines. I came upon several strangely laid out intersections and almost drove into oncoming traffic more than once. Yellow lines would solve this problem, people! Maybe no one has told them this though. I'll be sure to submit my letter to the EU this week. Ha. No wonder you can't get a license here until you are 18. While all the American kids are rushing into school waving a Driver's License in front of their friends on their sixteenth birthdays, German kids are drinking their first legal beers with their parents. What an interesting paradox.
I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, I was talking about my work trip. So I stayed in Wiesbaden Sunday through Friday, but each day we commuted into Mainz for our job training. Most nights we just hung out at the hotel, but a couple of nights we went into downtown Wiesbaden and then Mainz. I found the locals to be very friendly here. One sweet lady helped us figure out what bus we needed to take to downtown Wiesbaden, and even told us when to get off. We drove to Mainz though, and that was quite an experience. Driving behind streetcars, bicyclists darting out in front of cars, and trying to figure out where to park was a bit of a catastrophe. But we finally found a place close to the old town. There were some wine stands set up in the square and we were able to purchase a glass and take with with us as we wandered the little cobblestone streets. (But I was good and only had one taste since I was driving.) This region of Germany is known for their Riesling. I'm a red wine girl normally. I'll occasionally have a dry white in the summer, but never a Riesling because they are too sweet for my taste. That's what I thought before coming here anyway. But here in Germany they actually have dry Rieslings that are fabulous. So that was a nice discovery.
Don't worry. I made up for my lack of wine indulgence last Friday. Once my training was complete I headed out to Rudesheim am Rein, which is the cutest little German town I have seen since we have been here. The town is composed of winding cobblestone streets and idyllic German buildings, sandwiched right in between the Rhine and the verdant, rolling hills of vineyards. A girl friend of mind met me at the hotel and we headed out for a girls night on the town, which consisted of wandering around, taking pictures, and making a couple of wine stops until we finally decided around 9:30 that it was time to eat dinner. So Germans don't do dinner quite like the Spaniards do. They are a bit more regimented about things here, and meal time is not exception. Luckily we were able to find a pretty good restaurant still serving food past 10:00, but they were few and far between. However there was no shortage of beer, wine, dancing, or singing in the places we passed by. Rudesheim may look like a sleepy fairytale town, but they sure know how to party when the sun goes down!
We concluded our stay in Rudesheim with a morning walk through the vineyards, which I thought would be my last little adventure in the town of Rudesheim. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I would pick a route back home on my GPS that involved a ferry ride across the Rhine. And apparently I also did not follow the proper order in which to board said ferry, so I got a few honks and some dirty looks. And when the guy came up to my window and asked for me to pay for the ferry ride I gave him a confused look. Now I am from Oklahoma, so I don't have a lot of experience with ferries, but of course I assumed it was not a free ride. I just had no idea what number he had just rattled off in German. Luckily he took my confused look and muttered, "Uhhhh" to mean he needed to try English with me. I'm used to cheating with numbers in stores by looking at the number on the register. Note to self again: At least finally learn to count to 10 in German.
Oh and back to the whole adopting new holidays thing. We got to celebrate our first genuine Oktoberfest last weekend. And by that I mean Thomas wore lederhosen and I wore a dirndl. We didn't make it out to Munich this year, but the town near us was having their own big Oktoberfest celebration, so we went and drank beer that was specially brewed for the event, attempted to learn a few German songs and dances, and I learned how to properly wear a dirndl. Oh yes, there is a whole secret code to how to wear those things. Let me just start with how interesting it was putting this lovely thing on and getting ready to begin with. I love dressing up, so shopping for my dirndl was a blast. And I had a girl friend there to give me a second opinion, which I feel is helpful when you are first-time dirndl shopping. But she is an American also, so she wasn't able to let me in on the secret dirndl code, which is apparently only secret to us Americans. So anyway I am running late getting ready because I realize I still don't know how to braid my hair, no matter how many Pinterest pictures or videos I look at, so I give up and rush out the door not knowing how the heck I am supposed to tie the apron on my dirndl. We decided to bike to our neighbor's house to save time, and we don't make it far before Thomas starts yelling, "Your dress is caught in the wheel!" so I'm trying not to crash the bike while holding the ridiculously long tie to this apron so it doesn't get wound up in my gears, or whatever Thomas says is happening because I can't see because obviously I have a lot going on right now. Meanwhile I'm laughing because we watched the Wizard of Oz earlier and I just keep singing the witch's theme song in my head as I fly through the streets in this outfit on my bicycle with my purse in the front basket. Somehow I made it to Oktoberfest with my outfit fully intact, but as we were walking around, I met German woman let me in on the dirndl secret code. I had tied the apron in the back when we left in a rush, because that's how you tie aprons, right? Not how you tie dirndls though, unless you want to project a certain degree of friskiness. This woman informed me that tying the dirndl apron in the back means you're out looking for a one night stand, tying it to right means you are single, and tying it to the left means you are married. Well, I was mortified of course because I had unknowingly been walking around for at least 30 minutes with a suggestive subliminal message. She helped me fix the tie, which actually was a bit more tricky than you would think and it required wrapping the pieces around me a couple times to get it to tie where we wanted it. Now I know why they make those ties so long. So when it was finally all done I breathed a sigh of relief and went about my merry way, rejoining my other German friends at our table. But only a few minutes later one of the women I had befriended asked me, "Why do you have your dirndl tied on the wrong side?" I can only imagine the look of dismay that flashed across my face at that moment. You've got to be kidding me now. Sure enough, Google confirmed it. The left side means you are "single and ready to mingle." Sam: 0. Secret Dirndl Code: 3. She helped me switch it, one last time, to the right side, and we were the best of friends the rest of the night.
In conclusion, fall in Germany has been pretty eventful so far. And even though we didn't get to go to Cologne for shopping, we had a great day in Maastricht, which has become one of my favorite cities. Fun fact: One of the few things I learned and retained from our visit to the Parliamentarian in Brussels is that Maastricht was the birthplace of the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty was signed in 1992, and the euro currency was introduced a few years later.
As I was wandering through the quaint cobblestone streets lined with boutiques and restaurants, trying to take it all in while also scouting out the next stop on my quest for a new pair of boots, I had to pause for a moment of marveling when I stumbled upon this at the end of the street. There aren't a lot of things that will thwart my shoe shopping missions, but apparently medieval churches will do it. So I will leave you with one last dreamy photo until our next adventures.
