Yeah, I said it, Merry Christmas!

I have many complaints about Germany . . . but that is a subject of other posts. I have one thing that I love about Deutschland -- Christmas!!!

  Wednesday night at the main Christmas market in Kiel.

When I grew up, my neighbors and my family friends all celebrated Christmas. I went to Christian school for years and was an every-Sunday-sing-in-the choir churchgoer. So some time around the middle of December, as a child, my farewell became, Have a Merry Christmas!. In return, I got, "You, too."

In high school my world got bigger. I was never sure who celebrated Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan or nothing. So I started saying Merry Christmas only to the people I knew for sure celebrated that holiday. When I moved to New York, I adopted, "Happy Holidays" and sent it out to everyone. It was just easier. Oh, it was the ugly stepsister to "Merry Christmas" but it had to be used, instead. I even sent out Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings cards. Oh, they were elegant, with a sophisticated snowflake design or winter landscape. But they were not beautiful or heartwarming. No family gathered around a tree. No tree. No baby Jesus. No manager. No star. No chubby-faced toddlers running down stairs to see what Santa Claus brought them. No Santa Claus. No reindeer. No nothing.

Germany has all the Christmas accessories and it is the only holiday that people care about.

Very unfortunately, activities during the 1940s got rid of most of its Jewish population. There is little talk of Hanukkah. Plus, Hanukkah's prominence on the American calendar is a relative recent event and the result of its chronological closeness to the present-heavy Christmas holiday.

Also, unfortunately, the Islamic community here is not as vocal as it is in the U.S. The Turkish population has not melded in to mainstream society, so there is almost two communities here. I have not gained entrance to that sphere, so I am not sure what happens during December. I have not heard anyone mention Ramadan here nor have I seen mention of it in print.

So, all I can do is wish everyone, Frohe Weihnachten. Merry Christmas.

Actually, it is Merry Christmases. Christmas celebration starts Christmas Eve and continues covers the evening of December 26.

Of course, this is all very closed-minded of me. I make no excuses. I love Christmas. I am lazy. I like discussing Christmas and all its trappings. I love the music. I love the sentiment. I love the good times that sprout from the holiday. I love it all. I think if I were not raised Baptist, I would still love Christmas. It is just so happy and fun.

For a few weeks a year, that is Germany -- happy and fun. There are Christmas trees, Weihnachtmann (a German variant on Santa Claus), lights and Christmas markets everywhere.

Every German city has several Christmas markets. They are all a little different but share a few common traits -- spiced wine called glühwein, no chairs, würstchen (sausages), kartoffel puffer (kind of like potato fritter), sauteed mushrooms, and people in good spirits. I have been to Christmas markets in Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Kiel. Each city offered a complex of tents selling candles, scarves, sweaters, Christmas decorations, gloves, candy, puppets and jewelry, but there is some variety. I had some awesome tapas a few weeks ago at Cologne's Christmarket near the Dom. Some markets are better than others. I preferred the market at the Alster Lake to the bigger one at the Hamburg Rathaus (City Hall) and the market at Neumarkt to the one at Cologne's glorious church.

Didgeridoo players at a tent selling food at the main Christmas market in Kiel.

Asmus and I exchanged presents today. The Germans prefer to give gifts on Heiligabend (the Holy Evening, Christmas Eve). Asmus handed me a certificate that said I had received a subscription to America's version of Vanity Fair magazine. I already gave Asmus his gift of an ice cream maker a week ago. We had company and I thought we would make them some homemade ice cream. I got him a secondary gift, so that he would hav something to open on Christmas. Well, I have lost my husband to Civilization IV video game. He has said about three sentences to me since he tore the paper off the box two hours ago. I am proud and a little sad at the same time.

Season's Greetings!

Pie Sucess!

Necessity really is the mother of invention.

Germany does not have a pie culture. There is no pie pan, no recipes for crust and no pie filling in a can. So I had to make my own pie from SCRATCH. I have made pies but I did not create the entire thing with my two hands. I did two weeks ago.

I got a copy of Patti Labelle's sweet potato pie recipe and matched it with the Food Network's recipe for a sweet crust.

The pie got a little roughed up because Asmus wrestled it out of the pie plate.

He didn't know it is supposed to sit in the vessel.

It was a bit ugly but the pie tasted delicious. I introduced Asmus to the pie on Thanksgiving. You cannot have Thanksgiving without sweet potato pie.

The only thing I change is its firmness. I only had medium eggs and the recipe called for large eggs. Perhaps that correction will make things better.

Despite that, I am damn proud.

I told the in-laws about the pie and they said they were interested. I have a sweet potato pie recipe from the North Carolina Sweet Potato Pie Commission that uses fructose instead of table sugar.

In my search for recipes, I learned that North Carolina produces the majority of sweet potatoes eaten in the United States. Louisiana also grows a large percentage. Louisiana is crazy proud of their spud.

I am attempting another pie Friday. I have two German friends coming to visit. I am going to blow their minds!

I found pecans the other day. Do not under-estimate the work that went into that search. I looked in stores in Hamburg and Kiel. I found them in one store. I feel a pecan pie coming on.

Not so fast

That is me cowering before a representative of

Germany's Federal Bureau for Migrants and Refugees

It seems that I was to hasty and announcing myself done with the Integration Course. I made that announcement after completing my last class and last test.
I got my results two days ago.
Gulp.
I must achieve a B1 level on the test in order to have successfully completed it (Tip: the lower the number and lower the letter, the worse you did. C2 is the highest and A1 is the lowest.). I earned an A2 on speaking; B1 on the hearing and reading section; B1 on the writing section; and 20 out of 25 correct on the cultural portion (I needed to get 13 correct to pass.). With those results, I thought I passed. Nope, I earned A2 on the entire test. The government is kind enough to give you your specific results on the test. I got 68 points on the speaking; 75 is needed to get B1.
One can get A2 in either listening/reading or writing and B1 in the other sections and earn B1 for the entire test. If you get A2 in speaking, you do not pass, regardless of the grades in other sections.
I have not complained about much with this damn course. However, this is ridiculous. They should give the speaking portion and its results before give the rest of the test. This way, one does not waste your time and energy studying for a test that you have already failed.
I spent a day dealing with rude government officials. I understand bogged-down workers but these people were mean and deflating. I was speaking in English because it is efficient and I was chastised. I wanted to simply take the examination and skip the option of taking the last 300 hours of the course again (That is three months of sitting through the same material that I just sat through! For seven points!) and then take the test. I was pointedly told this was a dumb idea because I "obviously" needed help.

I am done listening to them. I have been practicing speaking since I got the results of my test. I will pass this damn test.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Today is my anniversary.

One year ago today, I got on a plane and I left my life.

I met a boy. I met a wonderful boy. In his own words, “an exotic Teutonic boy toy.”

As an American, all expectations are that he would come to me. Who doesn’t want to come to America? People fight sharks; pay thousands of dollars that they don’t have to shady figures and work for years to pay the debt; or stowaway in the well of airplane tires to get here.

Asmus helped run a company and looks in his parents. I was a happy employee of a major publishing house. His folks are about 20 years older than mine. Mine go to work every day and his haven’t worked since the ‘80s. So I decided to make the move.

It was easy but not. I am a logical being. It made sense for me to go. However, I wondered if I was acting like one of those women who sacrifice everything for their husbands and then 10 years later, they hate themselves. I told Asmus this and he thought the same thing. He pushed moving to the U.S. I was the one who pushed for me to immigrate. I had quiet moments and thought about it and thought about it. It just made sense to me and I felt good with the decisions. I asked my best friends and they said it made sense, too. So there.

The point was driven home a week or two after this decision. I was evicted from my apartment. My degenerate roommate allegedly was in California [her subletter and I wonder if she was really in California because she visit New York several times] and left without paying back rent and upcoming rent. She made payment plans with the city of New York that she didn’t tell me about and then renegged on it. So, we were evicted.

I got the notice early August.

I planned to come to Germany in October. Here I am two months before that -- homeless.

The first thing I did after I found out that I was officially homeless was call Asmus. The first thing he said was, “Come to me.”

Problem solved.

All my belongings sitting in Asmus' living room

I skipped trying to find a place to live for two months and asked a friend Jennie if I could crash at her place for two weeks. She said yes and I started giving my belongings.

My year in Germany has been an adventure. I have experienced life as an immigrant. It sucks. I got to live my best friend. It is wonderful. I discovered who my Americans real friends are. Thank you Mori, Marie, Jennie, Thomas, Tim, Ginger. They are the ones who send me news-filled emails and overcome several time zones to call me with chit chat. I made new friends. Thank you Anne, Konrad, Lunghei, Tanje, Toby. At 37, it is just about impossible to find people who will spend time with you. These people [except for South African Lunghei] hang out with me in a foreign language.

More importantly, across the distance I have become closer to my family. My older sister, Lorie, and I are on polar opposite side of the political spectrum [I am on the correct side. (Hah! Just joking, Lorie.)]. But we speak constantly. I “talk” to her more now than I ever did when we were 200 miles apart. Throughout the day, emails bounce between Kiel and Baltimore. She is preparing for her airplane flight to visit me. My mother and I joke via email. That is pretty impossible in person for us. Don’t know why. Plus, in print, she is a bit mushy. She misses me. I know this because she writes this to me. She also thinks I drink too much alcohol. I know this because she writes this to me.

Plus, I have doubled my family. I love Asmus’ family. His mother is so sweet. You feel better when you are in her presence. His father is an interesting person. Asmus’ older brother, Christian, officiated at our wedding. Asmus and I helped his wife and two sons cheer him on when he ran a marathon in Mainz.

Life is intense in Germany but it is always interesting. My new life is different than the one I left behind in New York and that is fine with me.

Home sweet home.

The Wedding!

Well, the big day came and went.

I am married.

I would recommend getting married in Germany to every American. There are no small details here. We rented a room at the Ahrensburg Castle. It is decorated nicely and the price of the room rental covers everything. There was no chair setup fee or anything annoying. I had no concerns about the venue.

Tio Pepe was already decorated nicely. They asked us how we wanted the tables to look for the reception. When we arrived, the tables looked like our vision.

Germans do not have party favors at weddings and I did not want to choose party favors, so there were no party favors.

The wedding day was pretty much stress-free. Asmus, who is always looking for the gray cloud behind the silver lining, predicted stress and found it. He was nervous about saying vows that he had written. While I was getting dressed, he sat on the couch and chugged cava. I got a little anxious when the cab came to take us the castle while I was writing my vows on notecards and putting on stockings. But that was the beginning and the end of the stress for me.

I met Asmus December 14, 2007 at the wedding of my friend Isabel in Cologne, Germany. She was marrying Asmus's oldest friend, Matthias. Asmus and I barely spoke that day. During the evening of the 15th, we were left alone because Matthias started talking some people who were sharing a table with us at a brewhouse [Curiosity about the American inspired many questions directed to him about me.]. Asmus and I talked about the difference between American potato salad and German potato salad [None. They are the same thing.] and discussed the look of American currency. That led to my obsession with 30 Rock. Somehow that led to a kiss. That kiss led me to believe that Asmus was going to be in my life for a while. I knew. Despite his living in Germany and my living in New York. I knew. So getting married was no stress at all.

The stress came five days before the wedding. My older sister Lorie's passport had not arrived. I believe the government is always going to fail you. So I knew that she was not going to make it. Lorie and I have had decades of trouble but lately we have been getting along pretty well. I was pretty bummed that she was not going to be here. She waited and then she acted. She drove from northern Delaware to Washington D.C. to see about getting it. No luck. No sister at the wedding.

Fortunately, I did have my mother there. I haven't seen here since September. Unfortunately she was sick. She had never been to Europe before, so I was nervous that she would hate it. She said her time was OK but you never know. She brought me a suitcase full of American treats that I requested -- several boxes of cake mixes, tubs of frosting, salad dressing, grits and Lawry's seasoned salt.

My mother and Asmus's family met officially at Asmus's parents house the day before the occasion. There was lively discussions and everyone ate all the fatty food that Asmus and I cooked. It was a success. Asmus's family eat pretty healthy. Very little salt and fat but lots of organic food from local farmers. We served packaged pasta covered in a packaged spinach-and-gorgonzola sauce to which we added bacon. Oh yeah, there was a salad for the first course. The pasta was so bad for you but it tasted so good. Asmus older brother, Jakob; his mother and his father ate it and said it was delicious and did not mention the sheer danger of the meal. Mom liked it, too.

The wedding was at 5. Almost all of the guests were supposed to take a tour of the castle at 4:15. Asmus wanted to make things were setup correctly, so we got there at 4. We were the last people to arrive. Everyone was standing outside the castle when we pulled up. They were congratulating us and taking pictures. It was a bit overwhelming. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I will admit that I planned to run the curling iron through my hair and freshen my makeup. That did not happen. I was getting hugged and helloed and then we had to take pictures. I am pretty anxious about what I look like in the photos. Pretty damn anxious.

Because my friends either didn't have the money or could not fly with young children, the only American in attendance was my mother. The Germans had never experienced someone saying their own vows. Asmus was worried about how his friends and family would react. I vowed to let him sleep late on the weekends and he vowed not to interrupt me when I talked. Asmus's older brother Christian served as officiant. During the service, he spoke of all the hurdles we had to overcome in order to be together. Christian was nervous speaking in public but he soldiered through it all and was amazing. After the ceremony, three or four people said they cried, so my "strange" plans were not too outlandish.

At the end of the day, Asmus said, "I am so happy."

It was a good day. I am not a fan of ceremonies. However, I felt pure joy in publicly declaring my love and respect for Asmus in front of friends and family.

Isabel served as photographer. Asmus and I must sift through the 300 or so images she created for us. When we do that, the blog will have photographs from the wedding.

Here is the plate immediately after Asmus and I ate the last of
our wedding cake the day after the ceremony.

More of Me in Print

I almost forgot to mention that The Local, an English-language website about Germany, published my article about the German Integration Course.

Are you thinking, "What is the Integration Course?"?

Well, it is a government-mandated course for immigrants to Germany. Germany does not have a long history of immigration, so there was not an official framework for creating new citizens. Until very recently, a German citizen was someone who was born in Germany of German parents.

In the 1950s, Germany needed help rebuilding the nation, so it invited the world to come work. Turkish people heeded the call. Instead of assimilation, they made their own communities within the country. Many people who have been there for decades maintain the same lifestyle they had in Turkey. Of course, some pretty bad inequalities surfaced. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement knows that separate is not equal. Turkish people have high rates of dropping out of school, crime rates, etc., etc. etc. All the gangsta rappers in Germany are Turkish. They are pretty angry people.

To ease some tensions, the government created a framework that required new immigrants to be officially integrated into the country. All foreign-born people, regardless of how long they have been in Germany, can take the course. The newer ones must take it if they want to get a settlement visa.

So I sit in a classroom from 8:50 am until 1 pm every weekday learning Germany language and culture. This lasts for six months. At the end of the course, there is a test. I must pass the test to get a settlement visa.

The diverse buffet created by students who hail from countries around the world. I brought the American-style Pringles chips and Doritos. I worked the night before class and did not have time to cook anything. Of course, a few people made fun of me.

The course is all in German and moves pretty fast. The European Union has a classification of language understanding that goes A1 for beginners to A2, then B1, B2, and then C1 and C2. C2 means you talk like a native speaker. I need to be at B1 at the end of six months. There are tests about twice a week and our progress is monitored. People who are not doing well are asked to leave. Three people disappeared from my class. I don't mind learning German. I want to learn German. I just wish it wasn't so regimented. Things could much faster if there was a class for people who understand some English. Because the class is filled with people from all over the world, it is taught only in German. So there is lots of drawing, exaggerated acting and pointing. I have done two months. I have four months to go.


I also wish a few people would leave. There was a man who stank. There were the two women who always called out answers. There was another guy who liked to criticize me. A whole group of people snickered if you gave a wrong answer or pronounced a word incorrectly. I have found that many people lack the grace that America instills in its people. I was silent at first [See. I am graceful.], then I had to tell people to back off [Although, I never told H that he needed deodorant. More evidence of my grace.].

I missed a month of class while living in London. I cannot join the third module of the course until March. I will not miss my rude, pushy classmates but I will miss their constant company. As immigrants, we are all in the same second-class boat.

And the Winner is . . .

In the match between the Torhaus and the Ahrensburg Schloss to decide which site would serve as the location for the wedding of Asmus and I, it wasn't even close. It was a unanimous knockout.

On March 14, I will walk down an aisle [Sorry German friends, we will not recite vows from a desk.] at:

Ahrensburg Schloss

A reception will follow at Tio Pepe near our home in the Volksdorf section of Hamburg. We will have the entire Spanish restaurant for seven hours of fun. Even children can have enjoy themselves. They can play kegel [a German variation on bowling that is usually played by kids].

Thanks for voting!

Going to the Torhaus . . .

Here is the other option for a ceremony that Asmus and I looked at last weekend. The Torhaus, a historical house in northern Hamburg.

The auditorium where a ceremony could take place.

This is a fuzzy view of the exterior of the Torhaus.

Going to the Castle . . .

I am getting ready to tie the knot. Asmus is going to make an honest woman out of me soon. Last weekend we inspected various locations for the ceremony and the reception. Here are photographs of my options, Ahrensburg Castle, which is located across the northeastern border of Hamburg.

Garden Salon, where a ceremony could occur.

The Cellar, where a reception could take place

The Ahrensburg Castle at night with a light rain coming down

Giving Thanks the Deutsch Way

I just spent my first Thanksgiving in Germany. It was different. For the eight years that I lived in Brooklyn, Thanksgiving meant fighting the ugliest holiday traffic. I eventually developed various strategies to cope.

At first, I would purchase an Amtrak ticket on the Monday before Thanksgiving. On the following Wednesday, I would catch the subway from Brooklyn to the train station in Manhattan, push through the throng of people trudging through the station, and wait for the train from the secret spot one level below the main floor. One year, I economized and took the bus. I paid economically and psychologically for that decision. The bus never showed up and there was no one in the waiting area who would help, so I hopped a cab to the train station. After those struggles, I would then arrive in downtown Philadelphia. I would either take a lovely commuter train to a neighborhood near my mother’s house and wait for the XH bus that never adhered to the schedule or brave the gross City Hall Station on the subway that took me to the prompt 6 bus.

I eventually tired of that mess and started arriving on Thanksgiving day, about two hours before dinner was served. No travel mess. Just a big, delicious meal with family. There was the traditional post-dinner rounds of embarrassing stories, but once that ended, the movie marathon began.

This year, I was not going to experience any of the Thanksgiving traditions because I was not in the United States. I wanted to miss it but I did not. I didn’t miss it until we made the decision not to mark the occasion at all. Then I missed endless talk show segments on how to create an innovative turkey dinner; the talk show segments that demonstrated how to make a traditional Thanksgiving meal; the thrill of not working on Thursday and Friday; listening to all my co-workers’ and friends’ stories of family fun; the continuous flow of sale ads for Black Friday; the horrible travel; and the general thrill that surrounds Thanksgiving.

As I prepared to teach English Thursday afternoon, everything just seemed so inadequate. No family. No food. No embarrassing stories. No movie marathon. Just soup that I picked up on my way home from German class.

Asmus called me in the midst of my preparations and demanded to go to Thanksgiving dinner. I protested a little, because he had not been feeling well. When he said that he felt fine, then I happily surrendered.

The Hamburg Marriott did not have my nephew but it did have my Asmus. With our first plate of food in front of us [I was determined to follow the American tradition of eating too much on the fourth Thursday in November.], we both listed something that we were thankful for. Fortunately, I was thankful for his entrance into my life and he was thankful for my being in his life. He also said my monologue was too long. Oh well, it seems that one of us is just more grateful than the other.

The cooks at Speicher 52 did a respectable job in replicating the American Thanksgiving dinner. There was an unbelievably-moist turkey, dressing with way too much celery, delicious potatoes au gratin, and sweet potato puree. The other items were delicious but misplaced. Autumn in Germany features lots of fresh corn and that was in abundance on the buffet. There was also various salads. My family eats many things on Thanksgiving but salad is not one of them. However, my favorite salad in the world sat on a table and I had to dig in. I went from full to bursting with a nice helping of Cobb salad. It was so worth it. I trudged from bursting to real problem with the ingestion of pecan pie and creme brulee. I took the pain happily.

The only problem was the lack of couch at the hotel. Usually I would lie until the pain of gluttony passes but we were in the middle of major hotel. I did not want to weather the stares that would naturally follow a Black woman moaning and splayed across a couch in the lobby.
We went home and I tried to sleep with too much good food in my stomach. It was a nice facsimile of the American holiday.

I'm an Alien. I'm a Legal Alien.

Yesterday, I became a legal immigrant.

Before my change in status, I was a tourist. Without a visa, Americans can stay in Germany for 90 days. Now I am a resident. I was a tourist without a place to live in another country but I was in Germany as a tourist.

The United States is one of six countries whose citizens do not have to secure a visa known as a residence card before they arrive in Germany. Officials at the New York consulate said it would take three months to get a residence card from there and a month to get one from Germany. My Mama didn't raise no fool, so I made the leap of faith that I would be granted a visa in Germany and moved. Yesterday I officially found out that I was correct.

With my residence card I am now eligible for government-sponsored German lessons. The government sponsors them because the government makes you take them. What I must take is actually called integration courses, which are mostly German lessons and some lessons on Germany culture. One must pass language and cultural tests in order to get a settlement card when the residence card expires.

I am actually excited about the language lessons. I have wanted to learn the language for about the last year, but it has been a choice between $500 German lessons or a plane ticket to Germany. I always chose the plane ticket. Now I get lessons that cost one euro for each session. Soon I will know what people are saying to me and what signs say.

With my new legal immigrant status, I can work. OK, that is good but what jobs can an American who speaks no German do in Germany? Teach English, of course! That is not my only option. I could also clean bathrooms and offices. And if push came to shove, I would. But push and shove are no where near each other, so I am teaching English. I started training on October 17. My first lesson is on the 21st. It will be nice to have money coming in, instead of going out.

As a child growing up, I assumed some things about my life as an adult. That list did not include the word “immigrant”. But now look at me, I’m a legal immigrant.

What to do Today?

Some may wonder how I fill my day. Each day, I wonder the same thing.

I really like doing whatever I want, when I want to do it. However, often that means that I do nothing. But I am very much OK with that.

The first week I was in Hamburg, I was very sick. I filled my day with sleeping. Last week was the first week of activity. I filled it with shopping. Asmus was a fabulous bachelor. He had plates, flatware and just about nothing else. One day, I bought a pitcher. I decided to create a theme night. He has a weakness for Cuba Libres and I had some ripe avocados, so last Thursday we had Fiesta Latina. I believe that variety is the spice of life, so I made sangria. My plans were almost thwarted by a lack of pitcher. On my way to buy, oh yes, groceries, I stopped off at a department store called Galleria Kaufhof. Fortunately, the housewares department is a few feet away from Rewe store. I bought the cutest pitcher for 4.50 euros. While I was there, I also picked up two black pot holders. I was tired of burning my hands while pulling a pizza out of the oven.

The evening we had steak for dinner, I bought four steak knives and a bread knife.

During my first trips to the grocery store, we bought vinegar, garlic powder, mayonnaise and mustard.

When I made hamburgers on Monday, I purchased ketchup.

We expect guests next weekend, so I am planning a trip to Ikea to buy six wine glasses and six drinking glasses.

Here is the barware that Asmus owns.

I am not much better than Asmus. I just received my beloved glasses.


This single girl has two of each style. I have several styles but not more than two of each [A good friend gave me a set of four glasses.]. Suddenly I am hosting more than one friend at a time. I must upgrade!

Shopping only takes up two hours or so. The biggest chunk of my day is devoted to Howard Stern. Through the magic of the Internet, I listen to the entire show and the Wrap-Up Show daily. Because of the time difference and my lack of obligation to anything, I can listen without breaks. Officially the Howard Stern Show starts at 6 am on the East Coast and 6 am on the West Coast. The show starts at noon and ends at 5 pm here [the Wrap-Up Show, in which they dissect the show that just ended, is actually more interesting than the name suggests. That starts as soon as the Howard Stern Show ends and lasts about an hour.] The parts that I missed when I was at the store can be heard when the Howard Stern Show starts over again immediately after the Wrap-Up Show on the East Coast or during the West Coast Feed. Joining in the West Coast Feed requires a little bit of math [If I stopped listening at 2 pm, that is 8 am on the East Coast, so that means the show had been on for two hours. If I get back in at 6 pm, then that means that it is noon on the East Coast and 9 am on the West Coast. The show is about to start all over again on the East Coast and it has been on for three hours on the West Coast. I choose the West Coast.

[My computer’s clock is tuned to East Coast time. It makes things easier when trying to call people at home or planning things with them.]

I listen to Howard while I lie in bed, get dressed, cook dinner, do laundry, eat lunch. He and the Gang keep me company throughout the day. I get to hear English spoken throughout the day and that makes me feel happy.

Before I devoted my afternoon to Howard, I would watch American sitcoms dubbed into German. I have watched Home Improvement, Roseanne, The Real World, Scrubs, Malcolm in the Middle, According to Jim, The Simpsons and Family Guy im Deutsch. I regularly watched those shows in English, so I can figure out what is going on. I have passed by the Cosby Show, Private Practice, a flavor of Law & Order, Judging Amy, The Hills, Camp Rock, and My Wife and Kids in German.

More evidence of the power of television. On Tuesday, I met a salesman at the Fossil store on Möckenbergstraße [ß = ss in German] who said he spent two magical weeks this summer in Orange County, California. He went because of Laguna Beach. He said it was better than he thought it would be.

The Internet has played a larger role in my German life. I start the day by watching the previous day’s Host Chat from Live Regis and Kelly online. Then I stop by Ross the Intern’s site for the latest Talky Blog. Then I read the New York Times, the New York Post, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, People, TV Guide and The Local [an English-language news site] online.

If the feeling is right, I write. I am not legally allowed to work in Germany until I get a residence card, which is a visa that allows me to live in Germany for two years. However, I can continue my freelance writing career. I pitched an article or two. But a big chunk of my life is emailing people. I am getting much better email since I left the United States of America. I read and reply back-to-back.

I spent most of yesterday with Asmus’ mother. A lovely woman comes every two weeks to clean the apartment, Brigitte. Yesterday was her day to improve our lives. I needed a place to go for three or four hours. As much as I love the mall, I don’t need to be there for that long. Asmus' mother was kind of enough to entertain me. I speak tourist-level German [I would like a beer, please. I don’t speak German. One cookie, please.] and she is a step away from conversational English. We shared the German-English dictionary like the three witches in Macbeth. Despite the communication handicaps, she said she enjoyed my visit. I know so little about his family that I am always open to talking. His father was not feeling well, so he stayed in his study. I earned stars for my thorough job of washing potatoes [kartoffeln] and chopping carrots [karotten]. We went into her large garden and she clipped fresh sage, parsley and mint for the vegetables. She told me where to buy a basket for hauling groceries [I complained about the frequency of shopping and she shared that she shopped Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There will be no shopping on Sundays but I am not sure if she had to go to the market on Monday and Tuesday.]. She told me about her years demonstrating against various causes into her 50s and detailed her various careers. I just ate her food and drank her tea. She seemed to enjoy my enjoyment of her food.

Today, I refuse to go to the grocery store. On Fridays, Howard plays the best clips of the week. I decided to get a pedicure. The search for a reasonably-price pedicure took up way too much of my life. Few German salons have websites, so it took lots of work to find one. Sorta. After a long Internet search, I am going to a place next to the mall I find myself at three times a week. This means that I will have to report about the differences between American pedicure and German pedicure.

A New Life in Germany

Welcome to my new life.

I just left the country where I spent my entire life and moved to Germany. I arrived in Hamburg 13 days ago. Things are very different here than they are in New York but I feel like I am at home.

This has been a crazy summer. My former roommate, Tanisha L. Grant, made several agreements to pay off debts to the landlord. She defaulted on every agreement. About 6 minutes after I came home from visiting my boyfriend in Hamburg, Germany in June, Tanisha said she had the worse thing in the world to tell me. I was ready for anything. Or so I thought. I learned that we had until June 30 to give the landlord $2,100, the amount covered by a rubber check, or we would be evicted.

On July 1, Tanisha said everything was “fine” with the rent. She had a subletter to pay for her half of the rent for two months, because she was supposedly at a directing workshop in Los Angeles. I was relieved to be done with Tanisha’s craziness. On August 6, I received an eviction notice. Karen, the woman who sublet for Tanisha, and I had six business days to leave the apartment.

With three vacation days for the year, I decided in June that I would move to Germany in October. With the eviction looming, I had a decision to make. Do I find a place to live for one month, do I move to my childhood home in Philadelphia and commute between there and New York five days a week, or do I just move up my departure date to Germany?

Asmus extended an invitation, so I bought a plane ticket. Despite my purchase, I was not mentally ready to move to Germany. I wanted to visit my friend Mori in Chicago. I wanted to eat two or three more cheesesteaks in Philadelphia. I hoped to hang out with my nephew for a few weekends. I needed to get mentally ready to leave the place that I called home for my entire life.

I moved out of the apartment a day earlier than usual because Tanisha allegedly stole several things from me. I came home two days before the eviction date to find several large items of mine stolen. Karen lost nothing, even though her bedroom was closer to the apartment door than mine. My computer. Gone. A small teapot and two petite tea cups. Gone. A glass cake plate. Gone. An unopened box of pots and pans. Gone. Karen’s laptop computer was not moved an inch but my teapot was stolen. This was not the work of a thief in search of quick money. Plus, the apartment had no forced entry.

When I discovered the robbery, I was immediately ready to move to Deutschland.


While Asmus and I only met 10 months ago, I had no fear about moving in with him. I was worried my reception by the rest of Germany.

I had this feeling that I would be the loudest person in the republic. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that I am.

I have been visiting Germany since 2000, so I know what to expect. But it is one thing to squash your personality for 5 days and another to alter it forever. I considered becoming less. Less emotional. Less loud. Less intense. Just less overall. After several rounds of thought, I decided to maintain my normal personality. If something is funny, I will laugh my normal, over-the-top guffaw. I get some stares but neither sticks nor stones. I live on buses and subway-like trains with people devoid of any emotion on their faces. It creates a weird sensation but I don’t let it stop me from sharing stupid stories and a loud laugh with Asmus.

One of the more startling changes for me is the frequency of grocery shopping. Most American refrigerators can eat up a German refrigerator and have room leftover for a German washing machine [more on that later]. Everything you need cannot fit in the refrigerator at once, so I am dropping by grocery stores about three times a week. In my previous life, I used to hit the local Pathmark about once a month and just replenish the produce once a week or so. Asmus has one of the biggest refrigerators that I have seen here and the freezer section is about 8 inches tall and 12 inches wide. The refrigerator section reaches about 18 inches.

Hamburg grocery stores are much smaller than their American cousins. The average German store covers 10,800 square feet and the typical American store is about 47,000 square feet. At the best store I have found here, I get to choose from two types of lettuce, one specie of potatoes, two varieties of steaks and an aisle of beers. I am actually confused by the lack of diversity of poultry. I have only seen chicken breasts in the butcher section. I really want to know where thighs, legs and wings that were once attached to the breasts are. I have not even seen a whole chicken. Asmus has a theory that all the wings are shipped to the United States and American poultry farmers are sending all the breasts here.

Some things about grocery stores are mysteries to me. None of the salad dressing flavors are familiar to me. I am afraid to try American dressing for fear that it is simply a combination of sugar and bacon fat. I gathered up my courage and bought French dressing. It is not awful but it does not have that familiar “French dressing” taste. It is creamy but filled with dill.

Rewe, my favorite store, has this American Sector. I found Hershey’s chocolate bars, Parade brand macaroni & cheese in a box, Heinz relish [Didn’t know that relish was American? Neither did I. Asmus and his friends had never heard of it before I questioned them.] and Paul Newman’s salad dressing. I think I will treat myself to some Paul Newman’s for Thanksgiving. Products in the American Sector are quite expensive. Paul Newman’s potion costs about 5.50 euros. I am not worthy of expensive dressing without an occasion.

Despite these small wacky things, I am enjoying my time here. Thanks to the Allied Forces destruction of Germany during World War II much of this country’s infrastructure is new. I live in a cozy apartment in northern Hamburg that was built about four decades ago and renovated in 1998.


After life in Brooklyn, it is nice not to live with roaches and mice. The smell of urine does not waft up from the stairway to the basement. There are no outdoor trash cans overflowing with household trash. I haven’t bumped into a homeless man throwing around items put out for recycling in a search for aluminum cans. Not one of my neighbors blast music from Friday night until Sunday afternoon.

Before the Walddörfer corporation installed houses, schools and shopping centers here, there were only trees and grass. With scalpel-like precision, the company placed buildings around wilderness. While there is an excellent mall about 3 miles and a little shopping area 1 mile away, I am surrounded by wilderness in the Bergstedt section of Hamburg.




I do not like to go outside much but I do like being engulfed by trees and grass. I look out the window and I see all kinds of colorful birds. It is crazy to see birds with electric green crests while sitting at my computer typing.


I ain’t in New York anymore.

OK, no one smiles here but no one is assaulting me with their fists or reggaeton.