Living and Leaving in Germany

Of course when you're in a foreign country, there will be foods that are not common in what folks around here call your "passport country." One of those things in Germany is tuna fish pizza. They love it here. I accidentally picked up a frozen one last week--meaning to pick up a shinken (ham) one. Not wanting to waste it, I thought, "what the heck?" I do want to embrace the culture here, but I'll have to do it without the fish pizza. Uggg!

One of the American women (mom to four--one of whom was born here) who has been here for four years and who has been waiting for over a month to find out when they are going home got her departure date last night. June 1. She was in the school parking lot today crying and saying, "I don't know why I'm crying. I HATE Germany." I guess the friends you make as you're learning whether to use der, die, dem, den or das and trying to figure out where to get American pancake mix and slogging through 4 to 5 months of near-constant rain are just hard to leave--even if you're going home. That, and the prospect of packing up a household of six, is enough to make anyone crack.

Now in true ex-pat form, everyone will line up to say how much they are going to miss her, and follow that up with an inquiry about what she'll be selling when she goes. We're all really just a bunch of scavengers.