Cheryl on the Web

Here in Germany we are lucky enough to get Good Friday and Easter Monday off work - yes, a 4-day weekend which is pretty much a mini-vacation! Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking enough in advance when I left home on Tuesday for my business trip, and I didn’t leave my husband Tim a grocery list. Since I didn’t arrive home until Friday, when all the stores are closed, and we went away on Saturday/Sunday, that means here we are foraging for food on Monday, when all the stores are still closed. I’d love to make a comment like, WHY can’t there be any grocery stores open in Europe on holidays??! But I have to admit that perhaps it says more about our lifestyle than about the culture we live in, that here we are with no food on the last day of our 4-day weekend. (more…)

My name is Cheryl, but you may call me… Mrs. Symons! Yes, I got married in the USA over 6 months ago - and the legal ceremony was in Holland over a year ago - but the Dutch and American governments just couldn’t figure out who had the authority to give me Tim’s last name. Nonetheless, I got news today that the US Consulate has agreed to issue me a passport with the last name Symons :D (more…)

Last night I watched a show on German television called “Goodbye, Deutschland”, about Germans who live and work in other countries (German “expats”). Naturally, they face in countries such as Portugal and Greece challenges similar to the ones Tim and I face here in Germany - things like language barriers, social acceptance, government regulations. In most cases I think that it was harder for these German expats than it is for Tim and I here in Germany, because at least in Germany things like health insurance are easily accessible and well-organised. In some ways, though, it was comforting to see these Germans experiencing in other countries the things we also experience here as expats, to reinforce the knowledge we already have - that no matter where you’re from, when you go to a new country and a new culture, there are similar challenges. (more…)

Germany has many unique cultural aspects, but one in particular stands out: Germans take their kitchens with them everywhere they go. After Tim and I moved to Germany, we were told by everyone who visited the apartment, you have a nice kitchen! But they were really impressed when we told them that it was part of the apartment - because in Germany, that’s almost unheard of. Even people who rent apartments tend to take their kitchen with them, so most apartments for rent don’t even have a kitchen.
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Here in Germany they are a fan of defacing all film or television made in any language other than German by dubbing the audio over with German translations of the original text. Let me assure you, this does not improve the end user experience. Trying to find a movie playing in a movie theatre in the *original* language in which it was recorded is like trying to find an empty seat in a nice jazz coffee house late Sunday afternoon: it poses a serious challenge.

Lucky for Tim and I, the primary movie theatre in Aschaffenburg does show original-language movies once a week, Monday night at 8pm. So one film, one showing per week, in maybe English or French. For the last 3 weeks, I had looked forward to the movie we get this week: Cars. I even wasn’t bothered that the work week started this week because I knew Monday night we would go see Cars.

That is, until Tim emailed Monday afternoon saying that the original version (OV) movie this week was playing at 5:15pm instead of 8pm! boooooo-HOOOOOooooO. No Cars for us. Next week is Devil Wore Prada - should be fun as long as they don’t trick me at the last minute;\

This morning Tim had his first German course since we’ve been in Germany. (He took 3 years of it in high school but, believe me, you wouldn’t know it.) He’s allowed to learn German during working hours (wow!) and now he’s finally found the time and the motivation. I think it will really help both of us to put our mind to learning the language instead of being so lazy about it. Of course, we’re having problems with our heating and I asked if he was ready to call the apartment handyman tomorrow for some German practice… and he wasn’t jumping to volunteer! :)

That’s the first German phrase Tim and I learned, if you don’t count the German lessons Tim had in high school and promptly forgot (call it post-traumatic stress, he hated his German class). Other favorite phrases of ours are “Wie gehts?”, “oder das” (Tim’s favorite), “Ich bin fertig!”, “Du bist krank!” and “Darf ich reinkommen?” Now, we’re actually not as bad as all that would imply, but we aren’t exactly integrated. We have good days and bad days.

Today was a good day. (more…)