Just Be Direct, Already! (Why New Yorkers Do Better Here)

Therapeutic Mushroom Hunting in Denmark 

   Well I can't write about having fun living in Germany right now because it hasn't been anything like that lately. Just a hard slog emotionally every day. 
   So I went to see my friend Anette in Denmark. A trip comparable in distance to traveling to central California from Ashland. And slept and read when it rained and walked around quiet lakes when the sun shone. Gave myself a week off from trying to understand everything German. And a week away from the big city, which is a harder change than anything. And it worked! I came back much less worried about everything.
   Ah, the magical power of vacation!

   Meanwhile J was hitting a wall at work and was ready to quit after several non-productive meetings with his boss. It looked like we were going to give it up after just 2 months. Then some English friends sat us down for a chat and said, "Look here. You're not communicating like a German. Time to be VERY DIRECT." Which is almost impossible for an Oregonian, but he did it! And they listened! Now he's on a new team and things are going very well. And it looks like we're staying.

   Today is his 2nd paid holiday. It was a Catholic one in August. This one is German reunification day. And amazingly it's not raining! I am on my way to Dorfen, where my New Zealand friend lives. J is of course riding...he knows how to get happy and that's good.

   Of course I'm trying to be upbeat when I write these posts. But there's a whole other side to moving here. I'm working my version of Step 11 right now:

We sought through giving thanks, asking questions, and listening carefully for answers, to improve our conscious contact with our Higher Power to improve our integration into our new country.

So: I'm thankful to be here. And it's okay that I'm struggling, even if you and my friends think I should be excited all the time. I am not sure 54 is the right age to do this. However I did just meet a 65 year old man last night who retired here from New York 3 years ago. He doesn't speak German, even after many years trying (a dozen). But he loves it here.

Willingness to Make Mistakes and Look Foolish

The Flowers I Deserve for Going Swimming in Deutsch with Psychotherapists

Today this version of Step 3 is guiding me:

We made a decision to practice self-love and to trust that with the help of a Higher Power of our understanding, we can strive not to take anything personally.

We just returned from our first trip out of town: to wonderful Frau B's new apartment in stunningly beautiful Schwartzach (near Bregenz), Austria, a very kind and generous friend of friends. And to party after party where we had/got to speak Deutsch (also the language of Austria, although a little different) or else sit in silence when folks weren't making an extra special effort to speak to us in their amazingly fluent (but still hesitant) English. My month of learning had the opportunity for a full immersion treatment.

So I took a vow of willingness before we left our apartment, forgave myself in advance for making many, many mistakes and (this is big) LOOKING REALLY FOOLISH, and jumped in. 

The Very Stylish Frau B

I took my baby Deutsch out for a swim whenever possible. My Iches and blumens splashed through the airwaves over and over again desperately seeking a verb to attach themselves to. And I tried to remember to put that verb at the very END of the sentence. "I must these beautiful flowers photograph." "I will today to the church at the top of the mountain climb."

Which is a whole new verbal acrobatics: the dreaded German grammar, which reduces otherwise confident people to quaking mounds of jelly. Or causes them to give up on learning the language altogether.

Cool Abstract Art and Sunlight

The Austrians just happened to be PSYCHOTHERAPISTS, by the way. Get it? Sigmund Freud was from Austria? And my first trip to Austria just happened to feature a party with a bunch of psychotherapists???? Who were friendly but not overly impressed with my cute little baby Deutsch. Particularly Florian across from me who was actually FROM VIENNA and related to emperors or something I didn't quite catch (but he was getting a little friendly ribbing about from the other non-Viennese Austrians).

Still, I could tell he was surprised when I could not only say his name "Flohw-(rolled r)ree-AHNN" but knew that it was a favorite in Bavaria. "Oh, you mean like Cafe Florian in Schwabing near the Englisher Garten?" 

What a show-off I am sometimes!

I didn't tell him that the only child I know here in Munich, currently rocking his Terrible Two's full-tilt, is named...Florian!

The Vienner (man from Vienna) and his friends shared that his nickname is "Flo," and I managed both not to laugh and not to let him know how much he wouldn't want to use that if he visits the U.S. 

(How did I manage this amazing feat? My Al-Anon mantra is currently the wonderful mini-inventory "Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said now? Does it need to be said now by me?" The answer is almost always no, particularly if my motivation is just to be clever.)

Admiring the Amazing View Before the Party

I really wanted a chance to roll out some of the bigger words I've learned like erlebnis (experience) and herausfordnerung (challenge), but I was nervous and so I stuck to Ich leben in München, etc. 

But I did manage to use one of my new favorites: pflanzliche, a word that just has it all! A P! An FL! A Z!!!! All voiced, mind you. Plus that delicious "leesh" sound at the end. And it means something cool, too: herbal or perhaps plantlike. As in, Welcome to the beautiful pflanzliche garten. The psychotherapist on my right and I decided after discussion and consultation with Google that perhaps "botanical" was the coolest definition.

The Pflanzliche Buddha Tree and the Mountains

He was a really nice psychotherapist, by the way. He claimed he was a nerd but actually he was just wearing hipster Seattle-style glasses (big chunky black frames, but no tape holding them together). John and I easily outnerded him. And yes, the German word for that is particularly easy: das Nerd.

Nerds and Psychotherapists and Good People All

My other current fav Deutsch word is manchmal (MAHNTSH-mall) meaning "sometimes." As in, Manchmal Deutsch ist ein Herausfordnerung. Sometimes I find myself sitting on the subway murmuring manchmal, manchmal... it just feels good!

And if you can't enjoy a new language (Voolay voo, anyone?), what's the point?