Summer in Kiel

Global warming is real.

How do I know? Because the entire week here in northern Germany has been sunny and over 80. If you’ve ever been here, you would know what a fluke this is – June is typically cool and rainy.

So I’m having mixed feelings. On the one hand, what a beautiful week. We are outside, really enjoying walking and sitting in the sidewalk cafes. On the other hand – well, it’s global warming. I didn’t come to Italy – I came to Kiel.

I’ve not been here long enough for the German idiosyncrasies to start bugging me. It’s still all humorous and charming. For example, why would you turn on inside lights when there’s a window in the room? Even if it is virtually dark outside? And don’t you like it unambiguous when you enter a room? I do, so I certainly like my room entrances clearly defined: A door that you can pull shut. And lock. And an inch-high threshold that you can trip over. (When we first moved here, our poor little girls tripped over the doorways for the first two months - !)

I like it that the light switch for the bathroom is conveniently located next to the door. On the wall outside the bathroom. I also like that I can choose on the toilet whether I want a large or a small flush – there are two different sized buttons on the wall behind the toilet. I also like that that the toilet essentially doesn’t hold water, but is instead sort of a shelf so you can, well … you get the idea.

If you live here for a while, bagging your own groceries, clerks who grunt at you, and people who mumble their names into the telephone become routine. But for me, at the moment, since it’s been so long, it’s all sort of a game. It’s fun to remember these things, or try to predict what will happen next.

Mostly, the week has been wonderful. I’ve seen friends – I had afternoon tea with Birgit and Heike, spent the night and all day yesterday with my friend Susanne. Tonight we’re going to dinner with Walter, Barbara, Heike, Axel, Claus and Birgit – they are a great group of people. Missing, sadly, are Pete and Sue, who have moved to Switzerland.

(I even sat in on Susanne’s German for Foreigners class – the entire class has passed the Certificate Exam, and I did pretty well – made more grammatical errors than the rest, looked up a few words, but understood almost everything, joined right in the conversation. Wow!)

Gary and I have spent a lot of time talking, making a plan for the next few years, deciding where we want to go after Houston, where we’d like to be long-term. We’ve thrown out ideas – whether or not they come to fruition, or are even feasible, we have yet to see.

I do know how lucky we are to have the opportunities we do. A lot of it we owe to his job – with his work, we’ve been able to live in some amazing places, and we’ve been able to provide out children with a rich and varied lifestyle. They’ve seen places that many people only dream about. The most important thing is – and what I’ve ascertained this week – is that we can create a life for ourselves wherever we go. That much I do know.

But man – das Internet is sooo teuer! Expensive. I have to write offline then quickly post and get off. So, no time for reading or posting to others’ blogs, no e-mails, except to the girls. But next week when I return to real life. Sadly, it’s inevitable.