Creature Comforts

Our stuff arrived two weeks ago. At the risk of sounding like the spoiled American I am, I was overjoyed. As familiar shapes were carried through the door and unwrapped to reveal the furniture underneath, I was like an ecstatic apartment-traffic controller, directing a five-man crew to each item’s precise location and orientation.

In my defense, it had been 7 weeks and 3 days since I’d left San Francisco, where I’d already gone 6 days with no furniture or familiar fixings with 2 freaked-out cats on my hands. The clothing I brought with me was appropriate for our first 10 days in Hamburg, then I had to do some creative layering to keep up with the dropping temperature.

Now I had shoes, sweaters, books, more than one pan to cook food in—every new/old thing unpacked was a forgotten luxury. And, as things go, there were the little irritants of settling; certain walls unable to hold artwork, no clothing rods in the closet, repeated no-shows for our Internet installation, etc.

Truly first-world problems.

Because just days after I was happily putting away spare towels and my favorite brand of lotion, Larry left his office and saw more than a dozen police cars converging on a building in his complex that was being converted from office space to refugee housing.

Vandalism? Arson? Bomb threat? It could have been any of those. But suddenly the complaints of my world were meaningless.

There have been reports of more than 200 attempted or successful attacks on refugee centers in just the past two weeks around Germany. During our early days in Hamburg there was a demonstration downtown, near where we happened to be wandering. I suspected it was related to the increased influx of refugees, but didn’t want to stick my little brown face around the corner to confirm.

The police activity just down the road last week was a little shake, a little reminder that under the pampering and padding, life can always be reduced to its essence: survival.

I’m grateful for the privileges that make my survival not such a struggle, and weeks ago might have argued that hardship is a relative thing. But finding the courage to leave everything you’ve ever known and truly start over with nothing for the hope of survival--there's nothing relative about that.

This Is Not a Kaffee Klatsch

Part of the incredible assistance Larry’s company provides in getting employees settled is a free language class for spouses. Given their professionalism in every other aspect of what they’ve done so far, I’m not sure why I thought this class was going to be a casual affair.

Maybe because the class is only offered every other week. Maybe because they call it the language class for Good Game Studios spouses. Anyway, I went to my first session as a way to meet other spouses and “prime the pump” for when I found the right intensive language course for me.

In my head:

• A group of ladies is sitting, talking about funny situations they’ve found themselves in and saying, “I wish I had known how to say…” or “What I really need to know how to say is…” 

• The instructor pipes in with the requisite phrases and similar ones for similar situations. Some laughter, some work on common vocabulary, time’s up till next time.

In reality:

• I am speed-walking to the Berlitz offices because the bus I’ve taken ended its route about a kilometer away. After finding the reception floor then going to the classroom floor then finding the class, I am late and anxious.

• I enter a stark classroom consisting of a long rectangular table, whiteboard and teacher at the end to my left, and two students--one male and one female--sitting across one end of the table from each other.

That’s it. No circle of ladies sharing tales and tidbits. No coffee or tea and biscuits. No as-you-need-it adaptable lesson plan.

There was a roll book and handouts and eventually four of us students and the teacher. We spent our two hours studying a map of a fictitious city and practicing getting and giving directions for various streets and institutions on the map, and using the correct form of the dative case with prepositions.

The last arrival to class was a woman who’s been taking an intensive class in the afternoons, five days a week for the past three months. I had originally thought I would take an all-day intensive class for two weeks, but re-thought that strategy after talking to her during a brief lesson break.

So I did not get my social club, but I did get some good information and thinking on next steps for me and how best to meet my goals.

(And a reminder that I need to start studying those noun articles again—so many words!)

Five Weeks, Five Moments

I wanted to share a few small moments from my first five weeks here in Hamburg. A mixture of “duh” and “don’t-be-so-smug” lessons about what happens when you’re hyperfocused on what’s in your own small orbit. J

Waiting on PINs and needles.  Our first week in Hamburg we learned that cash is king. Nearly everywhere you go it’s money or what I heard as “Euro” card (it’s actually girocard). So when we got our bank account and finally our own girocards, I was thrilled. I used my card in a couple of stores right away. The clerk ran it through, I signed a receipt, and was done. At one store they’d just gotten new readers, and I was able to insert the card myself. I stood waiting to get the receipt to sign. The clerk looked at me, looked at the screen, and looked back at me. I looked at the screen and wondered if I was supposed to sign somewhere electronically, but saw all text and no signature line. The clerk again looked at me and the screen, then had a flash of understanding. “PIN,” he said, looking at me and pointing at the screen. I sheepishly entered my code.

Can’t see the forest for the trees. Last Saturday we spent a productive morning having Larry’s iPhone repaired and getting our German SIM cards for our phones. As fate would have it our bank had a branch a few stores down, so we decided to get some cash. The sign on the door confirmed the bank was closed but gave directions to the geldautomat around the corner. At that entrance I zeroed in on a sign on the door, absorbed in trying to translate it to figure out how to get inside. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a hand reach past me and hit a large button on the wall, and the door swung wide open. I smiled at the woman, who was probably equally happy she didn’t have to wait for me to translate a sign that in all likelihood had nothing to do with entry into the ATM lobby.

“Two” hungry. I used to do my grocery shopping early on Sunday mornings, when stores were quiet and uncrowded. But stores in Hamburg are closed on Sundays, forcing me to alter my habit of many years. One Sunday morning, before this readjustment took hold, we found ourselves rather hungry but with very little food. For just this reason, many restaurants are open on Sundays, so we ventured to a nearby bakery. We scanned the many options and agreed on what we wanted. I originally thought I would ask what the different types of bread were for future reference, but instead, in my over-hungry state, whenever the baker hovered near one of our choices I just kept saying zwei (two) to which he just nodded and repeated zwei like he was placating a child. In my mind, I saw that moment in Total Recall when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s avatar head misfunctions and keeps repeating “two weeks!” until it finally melts down. Now I make sure to get food on Fridays.

“No” means “no idea what you’re saying.” Our complex has a “wash center” which is really just a laundry room with (depending on the week) 1-2 washing machines and 1 dryer. The machines operate on tokens you buy from the security office. Most of the time the office is manned by Herr Nagel, an extraordinarily friendly man who loves his job and dreams of backpacking across the U.S. On this particular day the office was manned by a stonefaced guard I hadn’t seen before. Larry asked him if we could get some laundry tokens. “Kein,” he quickly replied. “Kein?” Larry and I both repeated. He nodded, and as I was about to ask when they expected to get more, he continued, “Kein Englisch.” Aha. I asked for the tokens in German. He brightened and nodded we got our tokens with kein problem.

To the left, to the left. So back to that laundry room. I’d survived a messy struggle early on with one of the washers, which then disappeared and was replaced by a washer that had its own issues. I was pleased to get in early one Sunday morning and get the “good” washer, particularly when I came back to move my clothes and found a man punching buttons on the other machine, which just kept beeping at him. Poor guy, I thought to myself as I tugged on the door to my machine. If only he had known to use this washer instead. Although, after a few more tugs, I still couldn’t get the door open on my machine. No worries, I thought. Now I’ll wow him with my knowledge of the emergency door release (knowledge I gained through frantic translations of the manual for that now-departed washer). As I gave one final tug on the door and reached down toward the release lever, he leaned over and said, “Door opens on this side.”