Arrived in Frankfurt

Actually Sunday, 3 September
(Blue fonts are photo captions.)

Hello, everyone!

Well, we made it to Frankfurt safely. The flight over was terribly long but Elias was great. No screaming and minimal fussing. We held him most of the time to keep him calm, but because of that we didn’t get any sleep on the plane.

We were picked up from the airport by my new colleague and went straight to our apartment, which is actually just a room with an alcove for a kitchen. It’s really small! We slept for a while, got falafel at the Kebap Häus, then went to the grocery store. You pay a deposit to use a grocery cart, which you can take through the multi-storied store using ramp escalators. You have to bring your own grocery bags, or buy them there, and then bag your own groceries, which is pretty hectic. But those are just details; mainly it’s just like American stores.

Then we slept some more, or anyway we tried to. Jet lag is a terrible thing when you have a seven-week old who is also jet lagged. We were worn out, homesick, and ready to get back on the plane and go home. I would like to say our transition here was smooth, but why put on airs: it was (and is) hard. Moving a seven-week-old to a new country was a stupid idea. I did think beforehand that it would be difficult, but I also expected the great things to outweigh any difficulties. But then you’re eating peanut butter and Ritz crackers with leftover falafel in a studio apartment and it’s three a.m. and the baby is still crying and you haven’t slept in 30 hours and you’re face-to-face with the fact that you’re not the person you thought you were, or were pretending to be, and you wonder what the heck made you think you could do this? The Europe you read about in the guidebooks seems very distant.

But then day two begins. At 6:30 a.m. a still-awake Elias and I walked down the street to see a view of the mountains while Jenny tried to sleep. The neighborhood is fancy; large, gated houses that remind me of some neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. We live in one of those fancy houses, but of course we only occupy about 300 square feet of it. We also walked across the street into Grüneburg Park, which has lots of nice jogging paths. Later that day the three of us walked to the shopping street, Leipzigerstrasse, and scored a minor victory by being able to purchase a cappuccino at a sidewalk café. After dinner we walked to the Catholic Church but couldn’t decipher the mass times, so I’ll have to report on mass in German next week. After extensive consultation with a German-English dictionary, we managed to wash a load of laundry. Why does our German phrase book think it’s important to include “How much does a deck chair cost?” (Wieviel kostet ein Liegestuhl?) but not Schranktrocken? Then we washed Eli. In the sink. We finally made it to bed. The second night Elias slept much better (meaning he actually slept at all) but still wasn’t back to his pre-Germany sleep schedule.

Day three, Sunday (today), Elias and I continued our early-morning exploration of the neighborhood. (Jenny is up at night nursing, so I take the morning shift while she catches up sleep.) We went back down to Leipzigerstrasse and found a few bakeries. Most shops are closed on Sundays; only bakeries and a few other random shops and cafés can be open. After a pastry and a coffee—ah, coffee—the world seems a little brighter. Tomorrow we plan to take the train to Mainz, outside of Frankfurt, to see if we want to find an apartment there or stick with what we’ve got here.

We’re making good use of our time but obviously haven’t been here very long. Still we’ve found lots to like: Dollar coins instead of bills. Outdoor cafés. Grüneberg Park. Really beautiful neighborhoods (imagine the Mt. Vernon neighborhood in Baltimore, but the whole city like that). Shopping streets, not malls. Really cheap fresh-baked bread from the bakery. I haven’t had the beer yet—we’ve been drinking some sort of seasonal, partly-fermented, still-sweet wine, which is fantastic—but the beer is out there and cheap and I’m ready for it. I’ll keep you posted. Oh, and where are all the fat people? Jenny thinks that’s why German toilet paper is not as wide as the American version (smaller butts).

So to sum up. Arriving here was in many ways like camping. Your life is stripped down to essentials, minor things take great effort, and you are forced to take stock and decide, is what we have enough? And God willing it will be. Despite the pressures of culture shock, homesickness, and baby-raising, Jenny and I are keeping it together. We miss everyone terribly. Auf Wiedersehen.