Breakfast bliss and communicative barriers

It has become a bit of a habit, after dropping kids off at various schools and Kindergartens, to head for a bit of me-time at Due Baristi. It’s usually quite peaceful there, especially in the mornings. People do what I do, sit there to read the paper, read a book, get some work done… Enjoy the silence – and a stiff Cappuccino Grande. Today I went there most of all because for once I had a camera with me – and could pixelate my morning bliss for you folks.

If ever in Hamburg, don’t miss Due Baristi – OK?

Other excitement today: I had one of those nightmare-ish moments when my German skills just aren’t enough, even for the most basic needs of communication, and mere shame has my brain simply pack up and call it a day. So from a brave attempt to communicate with Kindergarten-staff, to total brain melt-down – about 35 seconds. Go me!

Not only do I look forward to my German class this fall. I desperately need it…!

22nd, again

This time it’s our fourth 22nd in Hamburg. Four 22nds – three months.

The first month was slow, the second gone in a flash and the third has been mere confusion. I couldn’t tell if it was fast or slow, the whole thing feels like just one big haze. I’m still sure everything is perfectly normal, that all of this is just various phases in the process of acclimatizing in an entirely new environment. But it’s still… well, a process.

I think we’re all pretty ready for vacation by now. We’re having two vacations this year, one in June, one in August. (And the kids and I will have the weeks in between as well, when we’re planning to go visit my Mom in Sweden.) I do wish we’d planned our “usual” vacation for June, instead of August. It’s the familiarity we miss right now – not more adventure and novelties. But on the other hand – how adventurous can a charter resort in Mallorca be? We plan to bore ourselves senseless with breakfast buffets, sea-bathing, pool-bathing, sun-bathing, ice-cream-eating, cappuccino-drinking, late (well, at least by familly measures…!) tapas-dinners along with all the other (German) tourists. A week should do the trick, shouldn’t it?

And come next Tuesday, we’re only four weeks from departure. Yay! (We’ve had late vacations for so many years now, having an early one is such a bliss… And then we have a late one, TOO! Double-yay!)

Anyways – I meant to write a milestone as of where we stand today, on this third 22nd in our new habitat, our personal land of confusion. And confusion it is – I can’t quite put my finger on the elusive here and now, to describe it. I think that’s the most striking thing. We have our everyday routines up and going, we’re starting to have a comfortable home going, and the kids are slowly getting used to their new school and kindergarten.

Our youngest takes a little bit more time to get used to his new environment, considering he’s going to an all-German kindergarten. To be honest I think he’s the one who does the most difficult readjustment-process of us all – being dumped in a Kindergarten where he doesn’t understand a word anyone says.

The six-year-old has started school, and that’s always a process in itself – but it’s at least a school where they speak Swedish. And Danish. And Norweigan. And German. And study English from day 1.

Then there is the commuting. I spend two hours a day commuting, just like in the old days – only now at least half of that is done by foot. I dream of finding a used Christiania-type bicycle, in good shape but cheap, which would save me an awaful lot of time commuting. I don’t mind walking, but it’s my little one who’s with me on half of those walks, and he minds – loudly. (And I can’t really blame him either. I strongly believe it’s good for kids to get used to walking – but this might be overdoing it just a little bit…)

My German has improved a bit, I guess, since we first got here. Back then I was happy if I could order a cup of coffee in a cafe, but now I get around with what I need to do, making a daily fool of myself for producing a most barbaric linguistic slaughter of the German language – but I get by with what I need done. I don’t find Germans in general very helpful when it comes to a foregner struggling with their language – there seems very often to be very little understanding of what it’s like to have something to say or ask about – and not find the ONE right word. That’s a bit sad, and for anyone moving to Germany probably something to be prepared for. There are exceptions of course, but not as many as I had expected, actually.

But I’ve done the proficiency test and found myself suggested two different level German courses – of which I’ve decided on the higher level, even though I believe it will be a bit over my head to begin with. These are courses for anyone who is new in Germany – regardless of personal interestlevel in languages and linguistic structures. I believe myself to be rather high on that scale – and therefore I should probably choose the course that will be a bit of a challenge for me. The worst thing that can happen is that I will have to do that level twice. And if so – so what, right?

Besides, i’m taking the normal course, not the intensive one – since I have other courses to fill my time with as well. I think 2×2 hours of German lectures a week will be just fine with me and get me ahead in German in a good steady pace. In September – whee…!

Things we still need to work on getting used to are:

1) ALL stores being closed on Sundays and holidays. I don’t know whether this is regulated by law – where I come from if there’s someone willing to pick up a wallet and spend money, there will also be someone willing to keep a spending-place open… But here everything – except for cafés and restaurants, thank gosh…! – really IS closed on Sundays.

2) Living in a house with walls of paper, with a grumpy below-neighbour who has no understanding for the fact that kids must be allowed to play in their home… She speaks of walking quietly, and demonstrates tip-toeing to prove her case. She’s 25. I’m glad I won’t be around when she’s 50… (And we do our best to keep the kids quiet – especially in weekend mornings, I’m just saying zero-tolerance isn’t very realistic… Not with kids this young!)

Spielstadt Hamburg

Two exhausted kids and one exhausted mother report for couch-slacking and tv-zapping… That’s just about what we’re capable of right now, hollow-eyed and sore from a fun morning (and half afternoon) at the Spielstadt Hamburg XXL. It really was XXL, I would say it’s about three times the size of the place (horrible website, check out only if you’re really looking for a playhouse in the Stockholm area…) we’ve used to go to.

We had agreed with another familly to go already in the morning, so we left home around 9. After a bit of hassle getting to the right place (I had a feeling we were waiting for a bus at the bus-stop for the wrong direction, so I asked the driver of another bus to be sure – and he said “No, no, your in the right place” so we stayed, and got on the bus. And after two stops on that bus I realised “to hell with it, we ARE on the wrong damn bus”. You don’t really expect to know the buslines better than the drivers themselves… *grmbll*) we arrived to an almost-empty Spielhaus around 9.45 or 10.00.

There were tons of stuff for the kids to play with, kilometres of slides, six-storey jungle gyms (impressively secured with net, hardened glass and padding), three-wheel-bikes with trailers, trampolines, bouncy castles… you name it, it was there! We didn’t leave until 1 pm, and even then we had to drag the kids out of there, because they wanted to stay. But at that point they were reaching the state of tiredness when you know there are going to be accidents, tears and blood if you don’t call it a day and go home to get some rest for the little ones… so we promised to go back there again, often!

I didn’t try the coffee, I just had one look at the “push-here-for-beige-to-brownish-goo-with-lathery-top-espresso-(bah)-machine and decided against it. I wonder why nobody thinks of getting a REAL coffee-machine for places like this, and learn how to operate it – and be able to offer their guests REAL good coffee while visiting. We’ve had a great day, and we will go back anyways – but the cost wouldn’t be greater, and the service would be… priceless. This is the kind of place where kids really can have a great time, while the parents really can relax and sit back for a while – so why not just throw in a decent cappuccino while you’re at it, eh?

Anyways. The kids are beat – and me too. Totally worth it, but wow… I need a nanny to come take over right about now!

16,732 steps…

…I’ve walked today. I suppose I will walk a few more before I hit the sack (although considering I woke up at 4:30 this morning – probably from a bad dream I can’t remember – and absolutely could not go back to sleep, I shall do my very best to do as little as possible this evening.

But almost 17,000 steps – and that’s on a pretty regular day. I haven’t walked very much more than my usual rounds to drop off kids (and I did NOT walk back and forth to Kindergarten as I was thinking of doing – I’ve realised now that I’m walking enough as it is, especially considering the state of my poor crooked lower back right now… This was just counting my walks between home, school, U-bahn, Kindergarten and back. First in the morning and then in the afternoon. Heck, if I could just lay off chocolate, I could easily be skinny as a stick when I return to Sweden… Just from all this walking!

And tomorrow there will be even more walking, I think. I’m going to Volkshochschule to register for a “Deutsch als Fremdsprache“-course in September. Better grab the bull by its horns and get on with it, right?

I am rather impressed with myself though – how much an ole hag like me can actually pick up from just being here. I mean – everybody knows that kids do it – but old folks? Oh yes, they actually do. This one has. Yay. But unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I can really get by with just that – I pick up words “with meaning”, but what I get stuck on is all those little words that tie sentences together. Der, das, die, wenn, wann, denn, dann, mich, mir, dich, dir, Sie, sie, sie, ihr, ihn, ihm… This language has MILLIONS of them, I kid you not. And there’s no way I can get the hang of that all by myself.

As I understand it Volkshochschule is a bit like Folkuniversitetet in Sweden (as opposed to our “folkhögskola”… tiny bit confusing there, but on our part for once, not the German…!) It’s the cheapest option for language courses around here – but: Everybody I’ve talked to who takes German there are happy and satisfied with their courses, while the few I’ve talked to who have chosen more expensive courses have actually been a bit disappointed with theirs. That kind of settles it for me. I kind of look forward to the course already (although I can only imagine what a nightmare of Kafka-administration I will have to go through to apply for the course… But at least they should be used to ppl not quite fluent in German, given the fact that it IS a course for Deutsch als Fremdsprache… Theoretically, at least). While I love the fact I’m able to study at Swedish universities although I’m here – I miss having real lessions to go to. Scheduled lessons. And classmates…!

On souls and patience

I would never have guessed that life as an expatriot would be so hard to put to words.  I mean – words are what I do, what I have always done. But this one is a too hard nut to crack. At least right now. I suppose it’s a matter of needing a bit of distance, being too much in the middle of it yet. But I certainly hope I won’t have to wait three years, until I’ve arrived safely back in the well-known Swedish “Bullerbü”-life once again, to write about my time abroad…

But OK. Patience was never my best game, and I suppose that’s what it is all about right now. Patience. Things are falling into place, the plan is slowly becoming reality. Kids are in school and kindergarten, I have a couple of hours each day for my studies etc, and I’m getting acquainted with the city. Last week I went on a knitting and crafting night with a few girls I’ve met through the forum of ToyTown Germany, and Tuesday of this week I went for a coffee with a German friend, who showed me around in a part of the city I still hadn’t been to on my own.

So. Step by step I guess we’re getting there. Whereever “there” actually is…

But yes. It’s a roller-coaster ride alright. One day I’m all cool thinking “man, this is great!” – the next day I’m sobbing and making a mess of myself and just wanting to go home. Only – someone else lives in my house now. The car is officially German, wearing proper HH-plates and all. This is for real. And I guess the hardest part is to find the “me” in all of this, where the only role I naturally have is the one of mother and housekeeper – and which is NOT one I readily identify with. So – what else?

I realise – I could have come better equipped to handle that particular insecurity. It’s a tricky one. It’s all but too easy to fall in the trap of seeking out whatever first community comes your way and just do anything to fit in – but that would only make the confusion worse. So. I’m going to take things really slow, and I’m going to do what wise women recommended before we even got here, I believe: Hold on to the things that define me, and stick with them. In time community and connections will come along relating to that, and then it will be right for me.

If anything, I came here to find myself (or at least the part of me I lost track of, years ago) – not loose the rest of it, ending up a house-cleaning robot who thinks soul is just a kind of music. But it’s tricky. And to be honest – this city, and the area we live in, doesn’t really make it any easier. It’s posh, superficial and not a single soul in sight. But they are there. I’ve found a few so far. A few is good. A few is all it takes. That and a wee bit of patience.

Elchtest: Ein Jahr in Bullerbü

I have got to read this book. Elchtest: Ein Jahr in Bullerbü. Just the title – and the German spelling of Bullerbyn… Priceless!

I stumbled on it yesterday, was browsing through a department store, hunting for a present for the birthday party my son’s going to this weekend – and the book cover caught my eye. All those brands of Swedishness – blinking like neon to the old Swedish soul.

And the back cover text had me laughing out loud right there in the department store. It goes something like this:

The opportunity to work in Stockholm for a year seems like paradise for the young familly. Sweden with it’s untouched nature, red wooden horses – just like one big playground. But the land of elks and Billy book-cases isn’t just “Bullerby” (I have no idea what this is in English… Anyone care to fill in the blank for me…?) The winter seems endless and dark, the people polite but closed (this is what had me laughing out loud, because that’s pretty much what I’d say… about the Germans I’ve met so far…!) and public wellfare only available for those who get through the bureaucratic waiting lines. None the less, the Hermann familly could always flee to the nearby furniture store, where the meatballs tasted like back home.”

I keep thinking – this is a joke, this is really written by a Swede who’s come to live in Germany for a year – but I guess it’s not. There’s just many common experiences I guess, when moving abroad and facing a new culture and a new society. But I do find it strange that a furniture store can be such a prominent key player – for both Swedes moving abroad and foreigners moving to Sweden. Fascinating.

I guess the real question is – should I read this book… or should I stay away from it?

A moment of silence

It took a while to figure out what it was, the unusual silence in our neighbourhood this morning. But then we realised… there were no traffic, at least no cars – just bicykles and pedestrians along the big street outside our apartment window. What? No cars? In the middle (hm, well… but in the central parts at least!) of a major city??

Today’s Hamburg Marathon, and apparently the race runs right outside our window.

Now there’s “traffic” again – although still no cars. Running men, cheering people along the street and a news chopper (I assume) in the air above. The silence is no more – but it was nice while it lasted…!

One little letter in a big, big world

So you’ve moved abroad, you’re trying to settle into  whole new world, or so it seems, where nothing is quite like you’re used to. In a way it’s like being all alone in the world, because it’s like being in a parallell dimension of sorts, only half-real. You go about your daily things – you get up in the morning, have breakfast, get dressed, go out and do whatever it is you do on a normal day, you pick up your mail on your way back and when there’s a letter in the mailbox from a major Swedish authority – you don’t really think twice about it. You open it, of course, assuming it’s to you.

But sometimes it isn’t.

This, of course, happened a week or so ago. Turns out in a house five doors down on our street, lives a Swedish bloke who works for a global company that runs some search engine, blog platform, email and other services (I’m sure you never heard if it, starting with G…?). So – in this big city in this big country, we end up crossing paths with another Swede on the weirdest of accounts. Hubby went to return the mail (and explain how come it was opened – which of course was quite understandable, I mean why would we expect it to be to someone else?), they ended up talking and suddenly we’re invited to a barbecue tomorrow – to the Swede, his (German) girlfriend and some workmate of his.

It’s a small world, I guess – at least if you let it be. But I sure hope they’ll speak English tomorrow…!

German logistics 101

German structure and order? Fuhgeddaboudit – it’s just an old joke. I don’t know who invented the notion of Germans being so damn linear and orderly and everything being structured and ruled up… But in the real world it ain’t so – it’s just about appearance. Put the service on the webpage – who gives a flying eff whether it works or not – as long as it looks good. Bah.

So, when hubby ordered a new tumble-dryer (don’t get me started on the dryer we got just after moving in – or rather the combined washer/dryer. My advice – don’t ever get combined machines, they are complete and utter crap) from the online version of the Big Department Store, he was given the fantastic option to choose delivery between 7 am -14 pm or 11 am -18 pm.

Ah, flexibility – for YOUR convenience, right? Bah again.

But alright, we figured 11-18 would be most feasible for us and checked that option. The delivery was to be made today, so yesterday he checked the site where you can track your delivery, just to see there was no problems. There it suddenly said 10-12, and with me schooling in our youngest starting 9 am, there was no way I could make it back home before 10.

The Big Department Store’s online staff said this was because there was no connection between their system and the actual delivery company’s system, and he would have to contact them to clear the matter.

So he did, and spoke with the actual driver who would make the delivery. Then he said (although in German, of course) “Yes, sure – delivery as planned today, between 9 and 11, no problem!”

So there’s one system with the seller, where the customer is fooled to believe he actually gets to have a say as to when the stuff is going to be delivered, another system with the delivery agency’s office – and a third one (and let me take a wild guess on this one: it’s made scribbled on a very worn-out pad of ruled paper…) with the delivery-guy himself.

In the end it worked out just fine, just because we did speak with the right guy – the driver. We agreed that delivery should be made after 12, at 12 sharp he called me and checked if I was in (and I was) – and the tumble-dryer was in place 10 minutes later.

But still. The SYSTEM(s) failed – it was the direct communication that finally did the trick.

A walk in the park

(Click on image for GoogleMaps live map)

Today was spent in the Hamburger Stadtpark, which is an absolutely monstrous park in the middle of Hamburg City. I can’t even explain how ridiculously big this park is. When we visited the first time, during Easter I think, we were looking for a playground where our friends had been a few days before and recommended to us.

And we walked and we walked and we walked before we found a playground we thought was the one they’d been to – a really big playground with lots of climbing-attractions and slides and what-not. When we came home that time and studied the map (that we of course hadn’t brought with us – bad move, shan’t be repeated) – we realised that we had then only been walking-walkng-walking in the western third or so of the park, west of the Hindenburgstraße. (It’s the woody, left part of the map above.)

Today we went there with our friends, and it turned out we hadn’t even been near the playground they meant. And the playground we had found, and thought was big was, err… NOT. Not compared to the playground wonderland we spent the afternoon at today. I didn’t even have enough wide-angled optics for my camera to take a single photograph that would give any sort of idea how big this playground was. The kids loved it. No shit, right? They had vast areas to run (astray) over, and more climbing-attractions, swings and slides than they could even try out in the 4 hours we were there.

They had, however, plenty of time to get themselves dirty…

I’m a bit short on reports from back home as to how far spring has come there – as far as I know the snow is at least but a memory now. Here I thought spring came early – but it’s also taking its time. When we first got here we had a week or so of grey gloom – and that one Saturday when we woke up to a Christmassy-white Hamburg… But then came the sunny and mild weeks, and one would have thought that spring would be ages ahead of the Northern Europe – but I don’t think it is, actually… Anyways – this is what spring looks like here in Hamburg. Young leaves sprouting from bare brances – but getting there. Definitely getting there!

I haven’t really read up on the history of the Hamburger Stadtpark, but it was definitely an amazing park that I will return to – with kids and without kids. This tree, too, is one I plan to return to – it was really impressive and fantasy-inspiring. Its crown was so widespread and “glorious” that they had put straps between the major branches, to support the weight put to the ageing wood. I explained to my older son, who has since long entered his “why-age”, that it’s like when elderly people sometimes need to have a walking stick to support them when they walk. I estimated the age of that tree to at least 100 years – which puts a lot of things in perspective, I think.

It’s like photographing a “grand-old-lady” of a tree – a respectful business, indeed. I hope to return, and portrait this particular tree at least in every season, while we’re here.