The "N" Word (Part 1)

A few weeks later we joined Don and his students for another tour, this time to Nuremberg. I recognized the destination as the location of the famous Nuremberg trials where Nazi leaders were tried for their atrocities in the Jewish Holocaust, but other than that, I wasn't sure what we would see. While riding the train I asked Scott, "So what else is there in Nuremberg besides the site of the trials? What are we going to see?"

 He answered, "I'm not sure what Don will take the students to see but I know the courthouse is there and Zeppelin Field, where Hitler held those huge Nazi rallies. I figured we'd just follow them." I pictured lines and lines of uniformed Nazis stretching one arm toward Hitler, where he screamed hate and from a huge stone podium.

 Don told us the courthouse was really not worth the extra travel to see so instead he led us to the "dokumentionszentrum reichsparteitagsgelände museen," or in English, The Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds Museum.

It was housed in a huge red brick and cement building. Construction had been started on the building, which would host Nazi gatherings, before the war, but construction had been stopped due to money shortage when the war started. This explained the very modern looking glass facade where we entered.

Although the building wasn't actually complete until well after the fall of the Third Reich, the Nazis did gather for meetings there when Hitler demanded and used the finished sections of the building along with the adjacent Zeppelin Field for their rallies. Now the building was a museum documenting the rise and fall of the Nazi party. The museum furnished each visitor with an audio tour. We wove around the cold cement building looking up at huge photographs of Hitler and his colleagues through the years. The photographs were lit brightly on the wall while the rooms themselves were dim and and crowded with visitors.

Elle loved the hand held audio tour device. She held it to her ear like a telephone. She purposefully strode from one photo to the next and found the red call number beneath each picture, punched it in her phone and listened intently to the information. Of course, she couldn't understand the actual story that was being told, and there were no photos of the victims of Hitler's reign thus far so to her it was just a great exercise of independence and "being grown up."

On the other hand, I knew exactly what horrors were on the horizon as I listened step by step how this sick man slithered his way up into the three highest positions in the German government. In room after room, museum visitors gawked at the countless photos of the scrawny man with beady eyes. Before I entered even the second room, I felt sick to my stomach, guilty almost. I felt as if, by listening and looking at every moment of the monster's takeover, I was somehow honoring him. I felt as if we had taken some ungodly pilgrimage to walk on the same cold stone floors where he and his lemmings marched. Before long, I couldn't do it anymore. Unfortunately, like the Holocaust museum in D.C., and like the concentration camps themselves, there was no escape. Visitors had to file through room after room until they reached the exit.

 Scott, on the other hand, could gather the information like a historian, objectively. He stopped and listened to each photo's narration while I turned off the audio tour and simply walked forward. Elle wandered through the rooms with her dad and I pushed toward the end of the sickening parade.

Without the earpiece, I could listen to the echoes of the past as they bounced between the stone walls and ceilings and floors. I swore I could hear the barking German orders Hitler gave his men here. I clenched my jaw at the booming acoustics when his soldiers called out to their leader in chorus. I shivered at the fearful sound of thousands of military boots pounding across the cement floors as they infiltrated the halls, following a madman to hell.

I didn't stop moving forward until, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed some photos that didn't feature Adolf Hitler. These were photos of the men and women who resisted, all killed immediately of course. But these were the people I wanted to honor. So I put my audio tour back up to my ear and listened to every word about regular people brave enough to face the devil. I wondered if I could have been part of the resistance, but quickly doubted my own strength. I thought of my son and daughter and sadly knew immediately that I would have kept my head down to protect my own family.

The last room of the museum was dedicated to the Nuremberg trials. Again, I listened to every word and studied every face. On the far wall, actual footage of the trials played and I sneered at the stern faces claiming ignorance. Gruesome footage interrupted their bogus testimony, showing hundreds of emancipated bodies, naked and gasping in a stone gas chamber. One man sat up and looked around himself. Every other body had fallen lifeless while he clawed at his throat in desperation. I snapped my head back to the door, where little Elle would be entering. I couldn't allow her sweet eyes to see it. I didn't want to see it either.

 Instead, I looked into a display table in the middle of the room. In it lay the newspaper headlines of the death penalties sentenced to the leading Nazis, along with a photograph of each and every one dead on stone slabs after their hangings. An ounce of satisfaction worked its way to my heart seeing them, blood seeping from their eyes and mouths, necks limp, the rope still collaring them. One man, though, caught my eye and iced my insides. He was clean faced, no blood. And he had no rope around his neck. Instead he was lying peacefully with his hands folded at his waist. His lips formed a half smile, content almost, and his left eye remained open, staring at me. It seems that while imprisoned, this man was able to get a poison tablet. He was able to kill himself on his own terms by swallowing it, and his one eye and smirk told everyone that he felt as if he had won somehow. I walked away, nauseous, fearing the evil that still lived through that man's one open threatening eye.

The Little Bread Window

On Saturday morning, every seat was taken on the commercial bus headed to Tubingen University, one of the oldest universities in Europe. Frau Becker had organized a tour of Universität Tubingen and a neighboring monastery for the American students and their host families. Don invited Scott, Elle and I to join them. We weren't sure if Elle could handle a full 10 hour day of touring but after our time with the students in Stuttgart, there was no doubt she would love it. Sure enough, the moment we arrived to the departure meeting point, she told me she didn't want to sit by us on the bus, but would rather sit with one of her "new friends."

The first thing Scott and I noticed was the dog on the bus, a mid-size shaggy dog that looked like Benji. He curled up in the aisle at his owners' feet. Since nobody else even seemed to blink an eye, we decided it must be the norm to bring family dogs anywhere and everywhere in Germany. I remembered a book I had read before coming to Germany that joked that it is less offensive to a German to criticize his children than his dog.

The bus driver announced on a loud speaker that we were expected to always wear our seat belts and reminded the men that they should sit down when using the bus toilet. Then we rode for 90 minutes to Tubingen. Scott and I reveled in the chance we had to actually sit next to each other while Elle babbled away to one of the girls she had chosen to sit beside.

We had a choice of an English or German speaking tour once we arrived in Tubingen. Scott and I of course chose the English tour, led by a German woman who had gone to college in America, and had flawless English. The rest of the group split up curiously. The native English speaking students chose the German tour, while their host families whose first language was German chose the English tour. Janine, one of the host-sisters chose the English tour as well, so Elle spent the day shadowing her. The little town of Tubingen was definitely a university town. Most of its residents were students, professors, employees and employees' families. In fact the university was founded even before Christopher Columbus in 1492 sailed the ocean blue!

The tour guide led us through the tiny cobbled streets, curvy and steep, and up and down endless flights of tiny stone stairs, worn down in the middle by hundreds of years of climbing feet. We traipsed the town from bottom to top, from the picturesque Neckar river where rows of canoe-like "shtoch" boats lined the shore, to the magnificent medieval castle poised on the tip of a mountain overlooking the countless tiny red roofs of her dominion.

Our tour guide filled us in on the "shtoch" boats as we watched them flow with the river filled with tourists and steered by a man standing in back with a long wooden pole. That is the "poke" stick, from which the boats get their name, poke-barges, or punt boats. They looked like a mix between a Venetian gondola and a good old' American canoe but they have a flat bottom and are exclusive to Tubingen. As it turns out, they play quite a huge part of the community.


Every year, the fraternities host a "stocherkahn" race in the Neckar. It had started in the 1950s as just a few frat boys having fun but now was a full community event with official university sponsorship. Over 50 teams of 8 sign up to race; men and women are both allowed. They name their boat and each decorate their boat thematically complete with full costumes. The tour guide recalled a few of the memorable themes, including one team of university professors (all male) who dressed as traditional German "hausfrauen" (housewives) to race down the river. They held wooden water buckets and sloshed mops around the boat while they floated along in their full "dirndl" costumes and wigs. She also described a favorite from a previous year of oiled up roman gods wearing only skimpy togas and leather sandals.

 The racers have two chances to win. They could cross the finish line first, in which case they are awarded Germany's favorite prize, kegs of beer. I can't remember the exact amount the winners receive but it was a lot, something like 200 liters of beer from the university and 50 liters from the town officials. The second way to win is with the beauty prize, which is awarded to the best costumed team. They win 50 liters of beer. How could an 8 person team possibly drink so much beer? Well, that question is easily answered by the other honor bestowed on the winners; they are responsible to host a party for all the racers AND spectators with free beer. Surprisingly, though, the post-race party isn't necessarily the highlight of the fun. The losing team's "prize" is sometimes even more entertaining. The boat that crosses the finish line last is awarded 4 liters of cod liver oil, which is split up among the team members. Each loser must drink a half liter of cod liver oil in front of the whole party. Their misery in doing so is apparently great fun for the winners.

We finished our tour in the town's Marktplatz, the center square. Like the rest of the town, the open walking mall was on a noticeable grade. We stood on the slanted ground and stared up at the Rathaus (town hall), and it's amazing astronomical clock, that tells exactly where the moon, planets and constellations are at any given moment. Although it was built in the early 1800s, to this day, when the clock's hands overlap, the townspeople know without a doubt to expect some sort of eclipse. My favorite part of the tour was here in Marktplatz.

Our guide pointed to two half-timbered houses standing side by side near the Rathaus and told us the story of the little bread window. If you look closely at the windows on the third floor (which Americans would know as the fourth floor), you'll see one frame that is painted white. That is the little bread window.

It's named for a local legend that took place right after the Thirty Years war in the mid 1600s. People were hurting for money and food at this time. In the house on the right, on the third floor lived a childless couple, who were fairly comfortable, financially. Directly next to them in the house on the left lived a huge family. The father of the family owned the local bakery but their income didn't allow a bigger apartment for their steadily growing family. Every two years it seemed, the mother had another baby. There apartment became so full that the childless couple in the next house decided to help out. They broke down the wall between their apartment and the bakery's family's apartment, then rebuilt a new wall within their own apartment, adding a new room to the baker's house. So, to this day, the two separate houses are connected on the third floor by that shared room.

 So why is it called the little bread window? The childless couple refused to take any money in compensation for their generous gift. Instead, without fail, they would find a fresh loaf of bread left anonymously outside their door every morning.

Reinforcements

After the bells in Stuttgart, Scott and I felt like chocolate and peanut butter together. We were best friends and began touring Germany with light hearts and easy laughter.

Reinforcements had arrived in the form of about twenty students from Grand Valley State University, who would be staying in and around Schwabish Gmunde for 6 weeks, along with their German professor, Don. We were invited by the university to join them and their host families for an orientation on Tuesday evening. Elle was beyond excited to see all the young people and immediately began stalking her favorite "new friends" as we found seats arranged in a u shape around the front of the classroom.

Frau Becker, the international coordinator at Pädogogische Hochschule (Pa-Ho), began the meeting by welcoming all of us. She spoke loudly and enunciated every word. The problem was, she was speaking German. Needless to say, the host families were German and the students were German students, so they all understood. That left Scott and me pretty much clueless until Frau Becker suddenly changed to English. At this point she told the group that there were a few in the group who couldn't speak Deutsch so we were welcome to introduce ourselves in English or German if we wanted. She hadn't mentioned our names, but her body language and eye contact made it clear to everyone that it was Scott and me who were the non-German speakers.

Don introduced himself first, in German of course. Don is a few years younger than Scott. He is tall and fit with the slightest hunch in his shoulders, as some tall people have, maybe to compensate for their height. He has shoulder-length hair, parted in the middle and smooth brown with a few wiry strings of silver peeking through the thick locks. We knew him from Grand Valley but not very well. I had met him once briefly a few years back, and then again just before we came to Germany when we hosted a casual dinner for three GVSU families who had taught at PaHo in Germany. It was at this dinner where Don witnessed my very first efforts at German.

As the German introductions, one by one, curved around to us, I couldn't help but take the challenge. I had been excused to use English, but there was no way I was wasting my three weeks of The Pimsleur Approach CDs to balk at a perfect chance to try it out in front of so many people. By the time all eyes in the room - about 40 pairs - turned to me expectantly, I was ready. Clearly and proudly I recited..."Ich bin Molly Stabler. Ich bin hier mit mien Mann und meine tochter. Mein tochter heist Elle, und Wir kommen aus Michigan." While I talked, I watch amused as Don's eyebrows slowly rose, his eyes widened and his mouth gaped open. By the time I finished my introduction, the room erupted in applause. I was so surprised that for an instant I remained still. Then my natural love of attention took over and I decided to enjoy the fun. I raised both arms and clasped my hands together. Then I pumped my clasped hands on either side of my head like a boxer who's just won a championship, causing laughter and more applause.

As quickly as it had started, it stopped and everyone stared at Scott, wondering if he too would surprise them with a newfound knowledge of German. His face was bright red and he held his breath for just long enough to start a whole new round of laughter. He introduced himself in English. He may have felt a little embarrassed at having been shown up by his Frau, but I'm pretty sure his pride outweighed anything else.

It was with this group that we began touring. Our first day trip was to Stuttgart. Elle immediately chose some college girls to cling to and as we tramped through the city, she skipped along joyously, chattering away to the girls about anything and everything. At one point, she turned to Scott and me, barely able to catch her breath, said, "This is my best day in Germany yet!" Don took us to the top of the train station tower, where a huge silver Mercedes Benz symbol rotated above a 360 degree panoramic view of the city. Elle hopped between the students who took turns holding her up to the fence to look over. Those students who loved kids were obvious, and Scott and I nudged each other, knowing that we may have just found a few babysitters for the next 6 weeks.

For lunch, the plan was to walk into a huge park area that the city was fighting to protect from a train station expansion. Environmentalists -and Germans are huge tree huggers- had painted construction gates with their opinion of the future construction.

Don left with a few students to buy bread and cheese to eat while the rest found a shady spot under one of the doomed trees to sit. Elle shadowed Thomas at this point. She was so excited later to show me the sign language he had taught her, "crab," and "rabbit," and "My name is Elle."

Scott and I spotted a biergarten close to where the young people would picnic and decided that we would eat there. We thought it may be tough to lure Elle away from "sooo many friends" until we pointed out the trampoline sitting right beside the rows of wooden picnic tables. We filed through a cafeteria style line to choose and purchase food. Scott and I ate wurst and drank bier while Elle sprang around the netted trampoline to her heart's content. When she tired of jumping, she bounded out and galloped to the playhouse and swings just beside the trampoline. Scott and I spent the rest of lunch discussing how underprivileged America is not to have our own outdoor beer gardens with playgrounds and trampolines!!

When the students finished eating, they wandered over to watch Elle jump. I could see the envy in their eyes when they read the sign saying "nur für kinder bis 12", until one student kicked off her sandals and climbed in with Elle. She laughed at our shocked faces and put her hands in the air, mocking a clueless tourist. In a loud drawling voice, she mispronounced each word, "EEESH SPRAKE AH KEYN DOICH!"

Scott and I returned to that biergarten the same night when the students headed to a festival in another section of the city. Don joined us along with two of his former students who had returned to Stuttgart and now live here. Elle had fallen asleep exhausted and was now sprawled out on the grass beside us while Elly, Heidi, Don, Scott and I had beers and joked.

We worried that when a sleepy Elle woke, she would end our fun but we were dead wrong. Amidst our conversation, she sat up, blinked once and looked around. Then she popped up and scampered back over to the trampoline. As evening came, more families arrived and the kids ran around the playground, climbing in and out of the trampoline while their parents drank monstrous mugs of beer.

When Don left the table to go get us another round, I took the opportunity to ask Elly and Heidi about their former professor. Watching him throughout the day, I had admired his calming voice and friendly eyes and I wondered how his coed students reacted to him. "So, tell me, are there a lot of students who have a crush on Herr Anderson?" Both Heidi and Elly laughed at the idea. But they didn't mean it in a cruel way. Quite the opposite, really. Heidi clarified, "No, we would never think of him that way. All of his students respect him too much for that. Whenever the German students get their new classes, they brag when they get Herr Anderson, because he's the best, smartest and toughest, but he still manages to keep such a genuine rapport with all of his students!"

We stayed out too late and didn't climb off the train back in Schwabish Gmunde until well after dark. Scott couldn't help but capture German beer getting the best of me once again, this time in a bush seconds from the bus stop. I still felt great, though. Elly and Heidi had given me their phone numbers and encouraged me to call them anytime. With Don's help, they even convinced Scott to ok a girls' night in Stuttgart some night. Not only that, but Elle was begging to have a babysitter soon. The outlook was great for some time to just get out and have some fun in our temporary home, Deutschland.

The Bells of Stuttgart

I honestly don't remember much about Stuttgart the first time we visited it. Scott and I basically spent the whole time arguing. Standing in Schlossplatz, Elle screamed at us to stop arguing and we were shamed into smoldering silence.

On our way to Stuttgart that morning, Jochen had called and invited us to get off the train a little early to have ice cream with him in Schorndorf. I was really relieved by the invite because I was dying for some outside conversation and Jochen had struck me as a fun, straightforward guy.

The village was beautiful with a square crowded with tents selling produce, meat, bread, cheese, fresh flowers and souvenirs. Surrounding the square were tall Fachwerkhause (half-timbered houses), dark wooden support beams criss-crossing their facades. A decorative maypole, topped by an evergreen tree, stood proudly amidst the houses. Like most small German villages, an archaic church sentried the middle of the square. It's steeple touched the clouds and stone gargoyles shot out from every side.

People were everywhere walking through the square while small cars and hippy delivery trucks maneuvered around the crowds. A boy, probably 10 years old overheard us talking and ran up excitedly to find out if we were American. A mentally handicapped older man approached Jochen for conversation and presumably some spare change. We had a small lunch and ice cream at Jochen's favorite cafe. He didn't know the menu, so I assume it was the staff that made it his favorite cafe. Young, pretty girls worked behind a delicatessen/espresso bar making paninis (called toast here) and crepes, both sweet and savory.

 Jochen pointed out one waitress as a friend of his who models for his artwork. He described his work as sculptures constructed only with clear tape. He showed me a photo of one on his iPhone. It was a woman in a bathtub. The water covered her midsection but her breasts were heavy and visible. Her legs were sprawled spread eagle on either edge of the claw foot tub. One hand hid beneath the surface of the water and one reached for a conspicuously phallic water spigot. I tried to hide my initial embarrassment, assuming it was my own American sexually repressed mentality. Other than the shocking subject, the details were quite amazing when one considered his simple media.

We talked with Jochen for more than an hour and before we left, I told him he'd have to take me out to see the nightlife sometime. Scott stopped in mid chew and gruffly commented on the inappropriateness of a married woman asking men to take her out without him. An uncomfortable silence followed for an eternal ten seconds before Jochen recovered with a question about Scott's classes at the university.

From the moment we were out of Jochen's sight, we argued the rest of the day. Scott pointed out how offended he was by my asking men on two different occasions to take me out without him, and I defended my innocent motive of just needing to get away and let loose for a few hours with someone who knew their way around. As in most heated arguments, our emotions got the best of us and neither really heard what the other was trying to say. Our disdain for each other was palpable. Fortunately, it was a rainy day in Stuttgart and the main street, Kunigstrasse (King street) was not too crowded. I'd like to think we didn't embarrass ourselves too much.

People strolled from store to store in the walking mall made of large rectangular stones. The street reminded me of the miracle mile in Chicago, other than the huge Mercedes Benz sign twirling atop a brown brick tower at the end of the street. Tall modern buildings housed multi-leveled department stores strung together with escalators. Customers shuffled in and out of the tall glass doors. Some led leashed dogs and didn't hesitate even a moment before entering the stores with them.

When the rain fell harder, we squeezed against the building. The eaves sheltered us from getting soaked. It was there huddling together that we both resigned. Scott shook his head and simply said, "Do what you want." I shrugged and thought to myself...and you can think what you want... We finished the day by walking through another of the damp city squares where rallies and demonstrations are usually held.

















Earlier in the day, we'd passed the same spot and a group of people hovered around the long white steps in front of a government building. The cul-de-sac ending at the square was lined with polizei vans. A dozen blue police vans curved around the narrow road and police in full riot gear stood around them watching the small demonstration. A woman with a megaphone connected to huge amplifiers yelled in German on the top of her lungs. The crowd around the woman called back now and then, while everyone else walking by, or sitting in the outdoor cafe just went on with their lives as if nothing strange was going on. It seems that loud demonstrations and rallies with someone screaming into an amplifier is a norm.

We had scurried quickly away from the screeching voice earlier in the day, and were relieved that she had left by the time we came through this second time. This time we were able to amble leisurely squinting up at the multiple church steeples surrounding the square. We discussed the possibility of having dinner in Stuttgart before catching the train back to Schwabich Gmunde. Scott had noticed an Italian restaurant near a statue of King Wilhelm who, Scott had recently learned, persecuted his ancestors four generations before.

 Our guess that it was near dinner time was easily enough verified when at 6:00 (18:00 here), every church bell in the vicinity started ringing. The multiple gongs from every direction slammed into each other above us, and echoed as they vibrated away to meet the newest clangs heading back to the square like some huge nautical storm. The power of the sound was overwhelming. Our eardrums swelled with the waves of volume. Elle covered her ears and Scott and I met each other's eyes amused by our mutual awe.

I'll always remember those bells. Somehow, they represent the moment when Scott and I joined the same team on this trip; the moment when loneliness didn't pervade me and when intimacy and opportunity rang louder than any longing, doubt or regret.

Caged Animal (Part 2)

"So what?" I asked Scott when he said it was getting close to 1 o'clock. We were on the bus with plans to go to the train station and catch a train to Stuttgart for the day. Stuttgart is the home of Mercedes Benz and it's the biggest city anywhere near us. It's kind of like the Chicago of this area. I was trying my hardest to fight the depression I had felt the day before and thought a day trip to a new place would brighten my spirits.

"So, if we get to Bahnhof (the train station) at 1:30 and catch a train immediately, we won't get to Stuttgart until almost 3:00. A train ticket is kind of a lot of money for only a few hours there."

I sighed, annoyed, "O.K. Fine. You make the plan for the day then." "Why don't we just get off the bus at Marktplatz in Schwabish Gmunde and take Elle to the Vasserspielplatz (water playground)." "That's fine." I shrugged begrudgingly.

Scott has always had a quirk - a quirk he'll deny I'm sure - of giving me the choice for where we should go or what we should eat or what we should do, and then, for some reason, changing the plans anyway. Honestly, I usually find the quirk amusing and laugh at him when he does it, contentedly going along with his alternative plans anyway, but my mood was not good. Because I was feeling so bad, he was the poor soul who took the brunt of it. His changing the plans at the last minute really irked me this time. In fact, in my state, everything about him annoyed me to no end.

The clothes he wore embarrassed me. The noises he made were like nails on a chalkboard. The words he chose, his gait, the way he hung his mouth, the way he chewed, the way he even breathed all made my jaw tense and my skin crawl. The poor guy couldn't do anything right. It was just one of those awful kind of days in my head when I couldn't stand my own husband.

So, of course, I hated his idea but felt powerless to do anything else. I wouldn't go to Stuttgart for the first time on my own, right? We found a cafe with dozens of small round tables and wooden folding chairs outside on the mall. The weather was an absolutely perfect sunny day in the low 70s. We could see the decorative fountain where children played and Elle investigated all the little water gadgets while Scott drank Coke and I had a mineral water.
A stone-throw away sat a circle of vendors selling fresh produce, meat, cheese, bread, fresh flowers and big grilled sausages perched on thick Briegel bread (briegels are unique to this part of Germany; it's a hard salty bread, half pretzel and half bread). We treated ourselves to three of the hot, juicy sausages while Elle tiptoed through the water.

 The Vasserspielplatz was small but quaint and very creative. The kids had to pump the water into the little steel river using different types of pumps. One was a round plunger that Elle could push down repeatedly to force water up into a pool. One had a paddle wheel that turned with the pressure of the flowing water. Her favorite was a wood and metal swing. She had to stand on it and balance as if she were on a surfboard. When she rocked the swing back and forth, the water pump dipped up and down, causing a spurt of water to pop out of the ground in time with her swinging. The harder she pumped the higher the burst of water flew.

Needless to say, this feature attracted most of the other kids as well, so they would come up behind her and wait for her to get off then climb on the swing themselves. She ran to us crying that she couldn't do it anymore because another kid had made her get off and we finally convinced her that if she stood long enough beside the swing, he would soon get off and she would have another turn. While she waited, a sweet little girl maybe 5 years old approached her. She looked straight into Elle's face and smiled. Elle became nervous and walked to another part of the river. The little girl, with curly brown hair and an endless smile skipped behind her.

Elle wasn't sure how to handle the situation. She knew by now that the kids here didn't understand English and she couldn't figure out how to play with someone without being able to give directions. She ran over to us. The little girl, sure enough skipped behind her and fearlessly came right up to our table. She smiled up at me with huge brown eyes. I handed Elle two chocolate tube-biscuits and told Elle to give one to the girl. The girl took it happily and said, "Danke" in the sweetest little chipmunk voice. "Wie heist du?" I asked her her name and I told her, "Das ist Elle." She nodded up and down so fast, her smile permanent, and the two of them galloped back to the water swing as new friends.

 Elle played happily and Scott and I ordered Eis (ice cream). It ended up being a fine day really so we agreed to go to Stuttgart the next day. I was able to relax into the sweetness of the situation and in spite of myself, let my resentment go, but I still couldn't feel genuinely happy or excited. That in itself was enough to depress me more. I kept asking myself why I wasn't happy when I was here having drinks in an outdoor European cafe on a perfect day with my husband and daughter.

The next day we would indeed take the train to Stuttgart, and the tension that had been notting in my stomach would finally release in a spectacular argument with Scott in the middle of the beautiful Schlossplatz (Castle Square).

Caged Animal

For three days I allowed myself to slip into a depression. I lost motivation to do even the smallest routines that I had made since arriving in Germany 2 weeks earlier. I didn't have the energy to jog. I didn't see the point in listening to my daily German lesson. As much as I learned to say, it didn't help in understanding the quick-speaking locals, and I didn't really have anyone to talk to anyway. I stopped having my evening glass of wine on the balcony, worried that the alcohol would make me only more depressed. I had to swallow a disappointing truth about myself; somehow I only existed through other peoples' eyes, and without any people here from whom to reflect, I felt like nothing.

To make things worse, I felt bad about little Elle having only imaginary friends to play with. I kept thinking of something my friend Sue from America had told me one day as we left a play group at her house. "The best gift you can give your child is a sibling." I beat myself up now for not giving Elle that precious gift when I had the chance.

It was during this 3 day span that Scott returned from work one day excited to tell me he had met another visiting professor from America. He had invited him to join us for dinner the following night and asked me if I preferred to cook dinner or go to the one restaurant in town, which he had dubbed Mario's. I couldn't help but be excited as well. I was so hungry to socialize and I wanted to return to Mario's to see Annamarie and Mario again.

When we arrived at the Italian restaurant, Annamarie had not yet started her shift so we ordered from a young waiter who we later found out was Mario's son. When we ordered milk for Elle, he returned with warmed milk. We remembered then that Annamarie had asked on our first visit if the milk should be warm or cold, and that the owner of a Turkish food stand we visited the week before had insisted that the juice in the refrigerator was too cold for Elle. We corrected him, requesting specifically kalt milche and made a mental note that small German children probably drank their beverages warm so we would have to specify from now on when we ordered milk for Elle. We ordered beers for Scott, Ryan and me.

 Ryan was from New York state and had been in Germany teaching English Literature for at least a year. He was a lanky 27 year-old with spiraled shoulder length hair and a short forehead. While we drank and ate, he told us about his time in German and my interest was piqued when he mentioned a book he was writing. He said he was finishing his fifth draft and getting ready to search for an agent. After grilling him mercilessly about the setting, plot and characters in his novel, I asked if he wanted to hear the idea I had for a novel I wanted to work on while in Germany.

Scott scoffed, "It's a romance."

 "No, it's not just a romance!" I insisted. "Sure, it has an affair in it but there's much more to it than that."

 Ryan said he wanted to hear about it and listened intently while I explained the plot line of the novel. I had been thinking about it for a long time, but until this moment, hadn't even thought of starting work on it. If this 27 year-old had finished a FIFTH DRAFT of his novel, I thought to myself, there was no reason I couldn't at least finish one draft of SOMETHING!

 "The premise is based on something that happened to us in real life. See, when we told Scott's parents that we were coming to live here, they told us that they had lived in Germany when they first married. They'd stayed for a full year in 1955, and in fact, his mother kept a travel journal. She gave me that journal to look through."

Ryan nodded and I continued to tell him my idea to fictionalize from that point on, so the daughter-in-law reads the journal only to infer some secrets about her husband's family from the journal. While struggling with the decision to tell her husband what she has uncovered about his past, she also discovers some truths about her own relationship with her husband. As I rambled on, I became more animated and excited, not only by the book idea, but for the mere chance to talk to someone besides Scott and Elle. I shared the twists and and turns of the plot and the surprises along the way while Ryan nodded approval and Scott rolled his eyes, probably embarrassed by my enthusiasm.

"Anyway," I continued, "Most of the book will actually be a flashback to 1955 Stuttgart through the journal, so I figure while I'm here I can do some research and interviews about the 50s in Germany and start a first draft." I searched his face anxiously for a reaction. "What do you think?"

"Do it! It sounds like something people would want to read." Ryan diplomatically encouraged me.

By this time, Annamarie had arrived and came over to us to welcome us back. She rubbed my shoulder and back familiarly and I savored the touch. Mario peeked his head out of the kitchen to wave to us as well. After two beers, I was feeling relaxed and at peace. I told the guys how good it felt just to drink a little too much and hang out. I told Ryan he would have to take me out on the town drinking some night to let loose. Scott told him I was a "caged animal!"

Before we left, I walked toward the bar to give Mario a quick hug. Honestly, he and Annamarie were the closest thing we had to friends so far, so I wanted to take advantage of any camaraderie I could find. When I approached him, he kissed both of my cheeks, and pulled me in for the hug. He was about equal to me in height, so it was an effortless embrace. His hand rested on the small of my back. When I pulled away and turned to leave, he kept his hand in the same place, causing him to feel my entire circumference, from back to waist, from waist to stomach. I smirked to myself, those Italians are smooth.

 I skipped out to catch up with Scott, Ryan and Elle. "Did you see that? He was able to get an all-around feel of my waist and stomach just by keeping his hand still. He's a smooth operator."

Again, Scott scoffed and shook his head, "You know you loved it, Molly!"

 I laughed, "Yeah, I did!"

"See, Ryan, what did I tell you, she's a caged animal!"

Shopping

Within a few days of playing at the park with Nadine and Lisa, our new friends were gone. Nadine and her girlfriends were taking a mini-holiday with their children while their husbands attended a handball match in Stuttgart. Scott had to start working right away so Elle and I were on our own again. We took the bus to Schwabish Gmunde Marktzplaz to go shopping. I had a list of things I wanted to pick up and the shops here are locally owned and specialized, so we would have to stop at several different shops.

 We stopped in the kamera laden first to see if they could fix my camera which had fallen on the floor. A tiny latch holding in the batteries had broken and I thought maybe it could be repaired while we shopped in the square. When I approached the man behind the service desk, I smiled and began, "Ich bin Americaneren..." but before I could even finish getting the word American out, he chuckled good-humoredly, as if it was so obvious that I was American I hadn't needed to say such a thing. I enjoyed his good nature and continued my request in the best German I could muster.

In the end, he told me in a sort of Germenglish he could send the camera out but the little mechanism that was broken was part of the base of the camera so it would cost more to fix than just buying a new camera. I told him I would talk to my husband and return later in the week. I left the store perplexed again by how the people here can identify me so quickly as an American before I even speak...I was wearing inconspicuous leather sandals so it couldn't be the shoes this time. Maybe the backpack?

We continued our errands, stopping at the butcher for meat, the bakery for bread, the fresh market for vegetables and the pharmacy for some antihistamine Scott had requested. The drugstore was a true pharmacy with a tall white counter behind which stood two women wearing white coats. I approached one of the service windows and explained what I needed for "mein Mann's nase" while Elle wandered the store. The pharmacist typed the medicine request into a computer then shuffled into a back room where she found what I needed. When she returned and gave me instructions, I bought the medicine and turned to leave.

Meanwhile, Elle had found a red balloon on the floor and brought it to me asking if she could have it. I turned back to the pharmacist to ask if Elle could have "that" as I pointed at the balloon. The woman looked confused and didn't know any English so I tried to ask again using a different order of the same words. She shrugged. Just then a woman in the next line scanned the situation and her face flashed with comprehension. She told me with her eyes that she could help and turned to the lady behind the counter speaking in rapid German. Again the pharmacist wasn't sure so the other lady behind the counter approached speaking a quick German sentence. The only word I understood was "Nein" so I knelt down to Elle. "Elle, the lady said you can't take this. It's the store's so we have to leave it here." Her little lip pouted out as I pulled the balloon from her grip and turned to leave.

 "No," the woman in line called to me in English, "She said you can have it. She said they don't know where the balloon came from so she can take it." I turned and beamed at the woman in appreciation. "Vielen dank!" I gushed. Then I picked the red balloon up from the floor and handed it Elle. She hugged the balloon to her chest and we walked to the next store.

 Elle had lucked out on our trip into the city. At nearly all the shops, she walked out with something new gifted by the people behind each counter. At the buch laden she had been handed a sucker, at the clothing store, a chocolate. The baker reached over the glass display to give her a tiny toothpick flag. She had even been treated to an impromptu game of peek a boo with a man shopping with his wife.

 That evening, Elle bounced the red ballon around our little kitchen while I made dinner. She squealed and yelled as she punched it into the air and chased it. Soon, she was yelling at an invisible friend she had transported here from America. "KENDALL!" she shouted. "CATCH IT BEFORE IT FALLS!" Then the game changed as she scurried around the room snatching at the ballon. "KENDALL, you can't steal it from me!" I felt for her loneliness, and when Scott got home, he immediately sensed my low mood. "Let's go for a walk after dinner," he suggested. "That will make you feel better."

 Elle borrowed Lisa's tricycle from the garage and we all walked the winding bike path around the village. As we strolled, a dark blanket of clouds enveloped the hills around us. Despite its beauty, I couldn't help but feel its heaviness. I felt the same ominous gathering in my stomach. I feared an oncoming depression if I didn't find someplace where I felt I belonged. Scott reminded me that we had felt the same loneliness when we traveled in the pass and before long I would have tons of friends and too much to do.