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.

New Friends

Elle needed a friend, so I took her by the hand and led her up one flight of stairs to knock on the landlord's apartment door. Armien, an olive-skinned, baby-faced man of 35, with dark eyes and black hair had welcomed us to stop by if ever we needed anything. I had met his wife, Nadine, along with their little daughter Lisa (pronounced Lee-za) very briefly when we arrived a week earlier. When Nadine answered the door, I reintroduced myself and, in German, I haltingly told her we were going to the park and wondered if she and Lisa would like to join us. By then Scott had followed us upstairs and Armien had come to the door. Nadine answered in German that she would come to the park in a few minutes after she changed out of her shorts into jeans. Then she asked, "If it's better for you, I can speak in English if you would like?" We all agreed to meet at the park in about 15 minutes, and to speak English.

At the park, Lisa and Elle played side by side in the stones and took turns pushing each other on the swing while Nadine and I talked about her time in California, and Armien and Scott chattered about places they had traveled. I guessed Nadine was a few years younger than her husband. She was equally fresh-faced with olive skin and round friendly eyes. She reminded me of my friend Lisa from Mothers and More back in Grand Rapids. She had the same natural beauty, the same smooth, mid-length dark brown hair, and had the same happy willingness to answer every one of my questions with informed, but not condescending advice. Nadine told me all about parks, zoos and pools where moms took their kids to play in the area. She invited Elle and me to her apartment to play anytime and suggested that we make plans to go to an amusement park together soon. Right away I felt at ease with her laid back demeanor.

As we all walked back to the apartment, Lisa and Elle held hands. I put an arm around Nadine's shoulder for a quick playful squeeze and said, "Thanks so much. You'll be my new best friend here."

At the park, Nadine had told me of a nice bike path around the village where I could run, so when we got home, I changed into my running clothes. I slid on my running shoes, plugged in my ear buds, and jogged up the road Nadine had mentioned. When I came upon the first left, I turned. It's where she told me I would find the beginning of the path. The street was narrow and looked more like a long driveway, but I continued. Many of the small streets here looked like curvy driveways. I passed a man leading a proud chestnut horse. The man watched me curiously as I passed, and I followed the path away from the house and barn.

Within minutes, the path ended abruptly. I stood looking back and forth, scanning my surroundings. There were green fields everywhere. Nadine said the bike route went in a circle away from town then back to the same path where the playground had been, so I knew I must have turned on the wrong street. In the distance, I spied a man on a bike riding between the green fields. I thought that must be the path I was supposed to be on.

 I really didn't want to run all the way back to the main street, so I decided just to wing it. I sucked in a deep breath and began running through the tall grass toward the right path. The uneven mounds of dirt beneath the grass challenged my ankles, and I focused with each step, willing my feet to stay sturdy. The thick green grass reached past my shins and I said a silent prayer that snakes weren't common at this latitude. I looked behind me and saw I had run about half the distance between the farm and the bike path. When I turned around, a huge rabbit popped up out of the grass, jetting hurriedly through the field, his eyes bulging in fear as he shot away from me. I jumped back startled, then laughed at myself as I continued to run.

 Once I reached the smooth black bike path, I settled into a relaxed jog between the grassy fields. My iPod shuffled to a West African hip life rhythm. Green and green and green stretched out forever all around me, interrupted only by blurry splotches of red roofed villages bunched in the distance. High mountains covered with thick evergreen trees lined the horizon all around, as if the scene were part of a huge bowl. The green fields rolled up and down like the smooth swells in the middle of a great sea.

Neat lines of tall trees, evergreens and apple trees, maples and ash trees, separated some of the rectangular fields from each other. The ones without trees were still distinguishable. Each farmer's individual mowing pattern made their patch of land unique from the next. And although, the whole was green, each shown a subtly different hue in the early evening sun. Bunches of tiny yellow flowers overtook one field, white wildflowers skipped through the next. In another, feathery balls atop spent dandelions swayed in the crisp evening breeze. I thought of a portly grey-haired woman shaking a huge old quilt in the wind. Although the sun sank close to the horizon, it shone brightly. Billowy clouds fluffed the azure sky, casting gigantic shadows across the patchwork.

I inhaled deeply, pulling the beauty and freshness into myself. Cool, crisp evening air filled my nostrils. It smelled like newly mown lawns and freshly spread fertilizer. I lost myself in the moment, forgot the function of running and just glided across the scene.

Ahead of me, the curvy black path peeked between the green swells, leading me. When I reached a sharp turn on the path, I glanced behind me. I jerked my full body around and caught my breath. The sun was gone but its rays had transformed the blue sky into the brightest pink, almost opaque in its depth. I jogged slowly backwards in awe, seeing the fields for the first time again, colored now by the fuchsia light cast from above. I was overwhelmed by the blessedness of this place, the blessedness of this moment, the blessedness of my life. I thanked God for glory and grace. I turned around and ran again.

The fullness of my soul, the renewal of my spirit propelled my feet back toward the tall red clock tower in the center of Bargau.

Throwing Stones

Scott and I sat on a giant, long log, worn smooth from people sitting on it. We watched Elle playing on the kinderspielplatz (playground) beside three German children. Elle climbed the ropes and slid down the slide happily as the other children sat in the tiny stones that made the bed around the play structures. Scott and I cynically wondered if the German children would throw the stones. We smirked, reading each other's thoughts.

Back in America, we had recently had dinner with an American family who had done the same trip we were on now. At the dinner I had asked Megan, the wife and mom of two small daughters about parental etiquette on a playground. "Do the moms speak to the other mothers' children?" I asked. Reflecting on Americans' own sensitivities concerning our children, I didn't want to break any unwritten codes that German parents had about their children. Megan hesitated and tilted her head, furrowing her eyebrows, unsure what exactly I was asking.

 I clarified, "For instance, if children on the playground are doing something...like throwing rocks or some..."

Her chin popped up, understanding the question and she interrupted. She was definitely sure that this would not be a situation in which I would find myself. She declared very adamantly, "German children do NOT throw rocks."

Scott and I glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. I could read his mind. Uh oh, our daughter will be a handful over there if German children don't even THINK of throwing rocks.

So now, we watched the three German children very intently, almost holding our breath with anticipation.

Elle went on jumping from slide to ropes, climbing the ramp of a tall wooden boat. When she got to the deck of the boat, she scanned the playground from above. I noticed the instant she spied the other children as her eyes zeroed in on her next mission. She turned and scurried down the boat ramp, running over to us while pointing at the three kids.

"Can I go play with those kids?" she panted. She was rounding out her u-turn before I could even finish saying yes. I didn't blame her for her excitement. It had been three or four days since she had interacted with any other children and she had already declared that "playing with adults all the time is boring."

 She slowed as she approached the children, two girls and a boy. About 10 feet away, she began walking. At five feet away, she tiptoed. At three feet away, she stopped to observe. With the tiniest movements, she examined the kids, bending over slightly, tilting her head and squinting at their busy hands. Having concluded her study, she inched a little closer to the three, who were hunched in a circle around the mound of stones they were building. I guessed the oldest girl to be 8 and the younger girl and boy at about 6 years-old. No other parents were in sight.

 She took a seat and proceeded to push her own little pile of stones together. Every few seconds, she craned her neck to check if her potential playmates noticed her. In only a few moments, she realized her tactic wasn't working so she galloped back to us hopefully. My parents surely can solve this problem, she must've been thinking.

 "Mommy, I want to play with those kids but they aren't playing with me."

 "Maybe if you go sit closer to them. You could even just sit in their circle with them and start helping them. They'll let you play with them if you do that." I said.

"Noooo," she whined. "I want to ask them if they will play with me."

"O.K., Let me think how you could ask." I ran the few words I had over and over in my head until I came up with the closest request I could construct. "Try saying, 'spielen si mit mir, bitte?'" (Will you play with me please?)

 Elle repeated the phrase back to me three or four times before she had it memorized, then she turned to walk back to the kids. Halfway to them, she lost her nerve. She returned to me begging, "Mom, please tell them for me!"

 I wagged my head back and forth, "No Elle. You have to ask them yourself."

 "Wwwwwwhhhhhhhyyyyy?" she pleaded.

To my surprise, Scott joined in her argument. "Molly, why can't you just go ask them to play with her?"

 It seemed obvious to me, but I answered anyway, "Well, because...they are kids. Elle can just go sit by them and they will let her join them. Plus, they're bigger kids so they don't want to play with some little kid who has her parents ask them to play with her." I coaxed Elle to repeat the phrase I had taught her again and told her to go sit by them and say the phrase. Her bottom lip stuck out, "But maaahhaaam, can you come with me?"

 "No"

"Why not?" Scott asked again. He was getting annoyed with my stubbornness.

"Because Scott, those kids do not want some adult coming over to play with them. If Elle wants to play with other kids, she has to approach them on her own. If I go over there, those kids won't want anything to do with me OR ELLE."

Scott rolled his eyes, "Well I guess we'll have to disagree." He stood up and turned to Elle, "I'll go with you Elle, but you have to say what mama told you to say."

She nodded agreement and led Scott over to the circle by the hand. They stopped just outside the circle. Scott looked huge standing beside Elle, and he must have looked gigantic from the three little children's perspective sitting on the ground. Scott nudged Elle, and she carefully repeated the phrase. The children didn't respond in any way. I knew that if I had heard her tiny request, the kids must have heard her too, so when Scott turned to me with questioning eyes, I shrugged.

 Scott cleared his throat, "Entschuldigung si." (Excuse me) The biggest girl looked up at his towering stature. He nudged Elle and she repeated the phrase. The two girl looked at each other, unsure. Then to all of our horror, the three children turned their backs on Elle and Scott and laughed out loud before returning to their exclusive task.

 Elle and Scott returned to the log, heads hanging. Elle's little lip quivered, then her mouth pursed before tears began pooling in her big brown eyes. "Mommy, I want to play with them but they just ignore me. I even said what you told me to say and they just laughed at me."

I tried my best to comfort her, but remained realistic. "Elle, those are big kids. They don't want to play with you if your dad is right next to you holding your hand. Just try to sit in their circle with them. Then they will let you help them."

She pulled her shoulders back, inhaled a deep breath, wiped her eyes and marched back to them. This girl REALLY wanted to play with other children! She sat only inches outside of their circle this time and began a pile of stones.

Within moments, the two girls opened the circle and scooted on either side of her. "See?" I elbowed Scott. The girls began speaking to Elle, presumably asking her questions in German. Elle stared down at her stone mound. She certainly didn't understand a word they were saying, but she didn't even look up at them. The bigger girl asked a few more questions. Elle continued to ignore them. Then, as quickly as they had approached her, the two girls hopped up, skittered away and sat in a different area of the playground. When they started a new pile of stones, the boy ran over to join them and Elle was left alone again.

"See?!" Scott elbowed me back. "They think she's weird because she won't speak to them. You should just tell them she can't speak German!"

 "We'll have to just disagree, I guess."

 Elle erupted into a fit of crying, sitting hopelessly alone next to her meager pile of stones. After she buried herself in my arms to cry, we rubbed her back and apologized for the situation. Both of us were at a loss on how to help our daughter and hated to see her so rejected. To make it worse, both of us thought the other handled the situation wrong.

 "Elle's tired'" I said. "Let's just go." Feeling isolated and vulnerable, we began walking away from the log bench. Scott put a crying Elle on his shoulders and we shuffled away, defeated.

We turned back to the playground when we heard a peppering of stones against wood. Sure enough, the three children were gleefully throwing handfuls of stones against the side of the wooden boat. Scott and I met gazes. We knew those brats would throw rocks!!!!

For the record, as we walked home, every single passerby smiled and happily said "Hallo," as they do every time we walk through town.

Ich Bin Americaner

We met Sabrina at Marktplatz (Market Square) in Schwabish Gmunde at 10 a.m.. Elle, Scott and I took bus number 1 from our apartment 8 kilometers (about 5 miles) to the city center for a tour of biggest city near Bargau. When we stepped off the bus, the cobblestone roads and smell of horses set the scene. Sabrina waited on a bench, maps and tourist pamphlets in hand, outside a red brick building that houses the city’s information office.

Sabrina is an English student at the University where Scott teaches. She spent a semester at Grand Valley State University last year and volunteered to orient us to the city. She had long, curly brown hair and brown eyes. She was about my size and was dressed similar to how I was dressed, with faded blue jeans and a casual short, sleeved blouse. We both wore sunglasses and minimal makeup.

 Her English sounded perfect to me, although she apologized for her bad grammar. I tried out some of my German on her and she smiled, amused. “How long have you been learning German?” she asked.

 I answered her in German, “Drei Wochen.” (3 weeks)

 Her eyes shot open and she raved, “WOW. Only three weeks! That is really good for only three weeks!” So throughout the day, I tried out German phrases on her when I could and she corrected my grammar issues (The order of their sentences is totally different than English).

When I told her I had to buy some cough medicine for Elle at the pharmacy, she became a teacher and asked how I would ask the pharmacist in German for what I wanted. I strung together the few words and phrases I knew, “Do you have…”, “I would like…” and “medicine” and I added in the prefix they use for anything concerning children “kinder.” When I tried to say what the medicine was for I realized I didn’t know what the word for cough was. She filled in that blank for me and escorted me to the pharmacist, who stood behind a tall counter in a white jacket. She allowed me to make my request and patiently waited for me to figure out what the pharmacist was saying when she responded with a question about the cough. It was a successful trial run. With minimal help from Sabrina, I walked away with cough medicine for Elle (which, by the way, I had already packed to bring to Germany but for some reason didn’t make it through customs).

I was impressed with Sabrina’s guidance as she walked us through the curvy little stone streets in town. She pointed to different storefronts and told us what we would find in each. When we mentioned specific things we needed, she walked us directly to the place we needed and helped us get it.

Scott wanted to get bus cards for us, so Sabrina took us to an office to buy them and patiently translated the whole conversation she had with the lady at the desk to be sure we got the best deal for how often we would be riding the bus.

At that point, I really admired the girl, and thought she seemed much older than her 20-few years. I let her lead the way out of the store and scanned her up and down from behind as she walked in front of me, thinking she was really a very pretty young woman too. That thought jumped involuntarily to English professor Jochen, and I wondered for just a split second whether Sabrina had ever had Jochen…in any sense of the word.

We walked past rows and rows of tables and chairs set in the middle of Marktplatz where locals sat drinking coffee or glass-bottled mineral water and eating pastries. Once in a while, a tiny mini-car maneuvered through the unmarked traffic circle, through pedestrian traffic to get to a road on the opposite side of the square. The warm morning sun shone down on little white umbrellas in the outdoor breakfast nook, walled in by beautiful old buildings now with modern storefronts. We stopped to admire the water fountain at the center of the square.

 “I want to show you the Kaufland.” She told us as she passed a tiny vegetable stand in front of an ancient church tower and meandered down a narrow side path, shaded between two stone buildings. “It’s the closest thing we have to your Meijer and you should be able to buy a lot of things there for your apartment; things that are not very expensive so they won’t last so long, but will work for the few months you are here.”

 While we walked toward the store, which was inside a small shopping mall complete with a bakery, Chinese food restaurant, a Euro-store (just like a dollar store), clothing stores, a hair and nail salon, and an erotic lingerie store, I asked Sabrina a question I had been curious about. “So Sabrina, do you think that people will know we are tourists just by looking at us?”

 Scott answered, “Well, yeah by our language.”

 “No,” I clarified, “Even before we open our mouths, will they be able to tell we are Americans.”

 Before I could get the question out, she was nodding her head up and down, “Yes.”

 I tilted my head and scowled in confusion, “How? I think we look just like everyone else around us.” I looked myself up and down, as well as Scott and Elle. “I think I'm even dressed a lot like you. How can you tell we aren’t German just by our looks?”

 She laughed and scanned us each from head to toe, shaking her head. “I can’t really say how I would know that you’re American, but we can just tell by looking at you.” I don’t know if she was just being polite and didn’t want to tell us what the glaring difference was, but she was 100% positive that we were obvious Americans as we walked through town.

 On the bus ride on the way home, Scott blurted out of nowhere, “It’s our shoes.”

 “What are you talking about?” I asked him, totally out of context.

 “It’s our shoes,” he declared, matter-of-factly. “That’s how they can tell we are Americans. It’s gotta be our shoes.”

 I looked down at my feet. I wore grey New Balance running shoes with sleekly designed, bright pink soles. Elle’s shoes were miniature near-replicas of mine, and Scott wore black basketball shoes with cushioned, visibly shock absorbent bottoms.

“Huh!” I shrugged and stuck my bottom lip out, considering it. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s it.”

 The next time the bus stopped, a woman got on with a Dalmation dog on a leash. It was clearly not a service dog, but not one person batted an eyelash as it sniffed its way down the center aisle. The woman sat in the seat in front of us, beside a young man in his late 20’s. Her dog scooched himself beneath the seat in front of him, happily planting his bottom end on the man’s shoes. Scott and I glanced at each other in disbelief then snapped our heads back to the scene to watch what happened next.

Nothing. Nothing happened. The man didn’t move his feet. The woman didn’t try to move her dog off his feet. He didn’t roll his eyes or ask the woman to get her dog away from him. She didn’t apologize for the dog. She didn’t even look at the man. Apparently, nothing abnormal had just happened at all!

 It reminded me of a story the marine at the airport, Brett told us about his new puppy he bought in Germany. He said he brought it to the vet for his puppy shots and the dog playfully gnawed at the doctor’s hand. The vet immediately pulled her hand back and swung a full-forced backhand across the small dog’s face. The dog squealed and Brett looked shocked. The vet gruffly declared, “GERMAN DOGS DO NOT BITE!”

The bus bounced along the road, curving through the rolling green hills that divide each little village until the next. We were nearing the sign for Bargau village limits when I randomly said, “Hey, Scott, I know something that’s different here than in America.”

“What?” he asked, curious.

 “There’s no roadkill.” He shook his head confidently, “Oh no. I did see roadkill.”

“Really?” I asked. “What was it?”

 “A chicken,” he answered nonchalantly. I laughed hysterically until we reached our stop.

Clock tower

The second thing I noticed when I walked out on our balcony (after the tall church clock tower) was a half dozen small white chickens pecking around in the neighbor's side yard. I hoped there was no rooster. Since we were now 6 hours ahead of Michigan time, I knew I wouldn't be sleeping well until the early hours and I didn't want some screeching cock to wake me at 4 a.m... If there turned out to be a rooster there, I would be forced to close the windows before bed every night.

 I had expected to have problems sleeping the first night so I wasn't angry or frustrated. I just laid there quietly and rested. I heard the bell echo in the clock tower every once in a while, drifting through the damp darkness. It punctuated my thoughts as I relaxed in the quiet room. The window was open to let in the night air, fresh with a hint of horse farm. It didn't take long to figure out the bell's pattern, and it became a little game in my head trying to predict when the next bell would ring and which pattern would chime.

 Every quarter hour, the clock would chime a three-note phrase. At fifteen minutes after, the phrase chimed once. Ding, ding, dong. At half past the hour, it chimed the three-note pattern twice. And at 45 minutes after the hour, the bell finished the phrase three times through. Ding, ding, dong. Ding, ding, dong. Ding, ding, dong. On the hour, the same phrase chimed four times before the bell announced the hour with deep resonating bongs. BONG, BONG, BONG.

 I had heard four loud bongs and two three-note chimes before I finally dozed off.

 The good news was the small white chickens in the neighbor's side yard do not have a mate. The bad news...the bell pattern in the church tower is interrupted at 6:30 a.m.. It CLANGS and CLONGS - not the deep bongs, not the sweet ding, ding, dongs - incessant CLANG CLONGS, no rhythm or melody, for at least one minute strait. Looks like I will be closing the windows before bed after all.

"A little German"

After customs and baggage claim we shuffled toward the airport exit where a tall man with tussled brown waves held up a white paper. "Stabler" was written in thick black marker. It excited me to see our name. "Hey Scott, I've never had anyone hold a sign with my name at the airport before!" He chuckled with pride. Scott loves when he can show me any new experience. 

The man was Jochen, an English professor at the university where Scott would teach. He took us and our luggage in his hatchback to our new home in Bargau. As he expertly wove through the narrow curving roads, we stared out the windows at the rolling green countryside and exchanged small talk. Jochen, who told us we could call him Joe, spoke flawless English and respectfully praised my attempts at German. "I'm so glad all of our stuff fit in your car," Scott commented. "I wasn't sure it would after you emailed me all the bags you would be bringing. That's why I asked in my last email if your wife was slim. Did you get that email?" Guffawing, Scott answered, "No, I didn't get that one, but that's a funny thing to ask, though!" Jochen chuckled as well, "I was worried when you didn't answer the question. I thought maybe I should bring a bigger car!"

 I liked Jochen by the time we reached Bargau. He was fit and good looking. He seemed very laid back and he made a point to use his rear view mirror to make eye contact with me while he was talking. I felt like he wanted me to be part of the conversation, which honestly isn't always something American men do when speaking with Scott and me. Plus I liked his candor. I appreciate someone who is truthful about who he is, despite the fact I have an inkling he may be a dog...he mentioned to us that it was good that the university's student body is made up of about 80% females.

 "Why is that good?" I asked. 

"Well, it's good for me! It's nice to look at," he said with a mischievous spark in his eye. 

Bargau is a tiny village nestled in a shallow valley surrounded by the greenest hills. All the houses are about the same height and they are bunched together like a cozy family. They all have red roofs made of countless u-shaped clay shingles and tightly line the curviest little streets. The village reminded me of the base of a ski resort, where the ski shops are all set up like a tiny Swiss village, or the opening scene from Beauty and the Beast, where Belle twirls and sings about "this provincial life." The tallest structure in the town is an old red church steeple, and it was the first thing I saw when I walked out on the balcony of our 500 square foot apartment. 

 Our first night we decided to go out for a few beers to help us sleep. We were given directions to the town's one restaurant, Italian. It was within walking distance, as is everything in town as far as I can guess. With Elle on Scott's shoulders, we took the path behind the apartment, crossed one street, which wasn't much wider than the walking path really, passed behind a house with ducks in the yard, then turned right onto the next windy road. 

It was hard to tell which place was the restaurant. 

The houses and the businesses look similar, and the huge, bright signage that we're used to in America doesn't exist in this little town. So Scott and slinked inconspicuously beside each building trying to peak inside the small windows to see if the people inside looked like residents or patrons. We found one that we agreed looked like a restaurant and bar, and peaked in the cracked door before entering. 

Three hardy men, beer steins in hand, were hunched around one rectangle table beside a small wooden bar. A plump waitress stood at the end of their table, adding to their carousing conversation. Her short, graying hair, full, rosy cheeks and frilly apron illustrated the stereotypical German barmaid quite amusingly. 

 Scott stepped aside for me to approach the little bar. I had been learning German for the last three weeks using a German language cd set and he knew I could at least ask for basics. I prefaced my request by telling her in German that I understood only a little German. Then I haltingly asked, "konnen wir ein paar Beir zu kauffen?" I had rehearsed this sentence all the way to the restaurant, and was proud when she understood me right away (Can we buy a few beers to go?). 

 "Nein." My stomach dropped. Was Sarah from the airport right about the Germans not being friendly to strangers? The barmaid spewed more German explaining her answer and I was sure she was telling us that she wasn't selling us any beer. 

Then she saw my perplexed faced and slowed down. My stomach relaxed when she began gesturing to the tap. I thought I understood but clarified just to be sure...and to show off some of my newly acquired German, of course. "So we can drink beers here? And eat here?" "Ja!" she beamed. Then she waved her hand toward the five or six open tables in the cramped space and gestured for us to sit down. I ordered zwei helles bier (two light beers) then we sat down a few tables away from the three men. 

The waitress, Anna Maria took our food order patiently then experimented with her own small English vocabulary while we waited for our dinners. A few more men wandered in to sit with the others. They were certainly locals who met here often. Each man that entered was a little bigger than the one before, until the last man bounded in, as wide as the door and as round as he was tall. 

When our dinner was done, Anna Maria cleared our table and brought me another "light" beer. Then, to our delight Mario, the petite Italian cook, dressed in a thin white undershirt and black pants strode over to our table and pulled up a chair. Joyfully he sized up our language skills. It turned out, along with Italian, he spoke a little Spanish, a little French and a little German. Scott speaks a little Spanish. I speak a little French and a little German. Plus Anna Maria, who joined us between serving her group of regulars, spoke a little English. So between all the common ground, we had a great time understanding each other in all of our bits of language. Someone trying to follow our conversation would have been pretty frustrated trying to figure out what language we were speaking. 

 I could barely finish my second beer. Germany's "light" beer is not so light after all. Mario offered me a cigarette. He winked and said we wouldn't usually be able to smoke in the restaurant but "we are only friends here tonight so..." 

 With our bellies full and with smiles on our faces, Scott, Elle and I waved goodbye. I called out every good bye I could think of in German as Mario and Anna Maria yelled back encouragingly. "Auf Wiedersehen! Bis Spater! Bis Balt! Bis Morgen! Alles Gute!" 

When we got back to the apartment, I learned a new German word, "mich ubergeben." After only two beers? Yes! Seriously, German beer is thick in the gut!

Smile Power

At the Newark airport where we had a 6 hour layover, we met a young American couple returning to Germany after a visit with family in the U.S.. The young man, Brett was a marine, stationed in an Army base in Stuttgart for the last 2 1/2 years. His wife, Sarah, a Panamanian-American, was also a marine but had been discharged in order to give birth to their now 20 month old daughter, Zarati (rhymes with karate). Elle and little Zarati had emptied Elle's carry-on and backpack. 

Scattered books, toys and games between two rows of chairs acted as a perimeter for our little lay-over camp. The girls sat playing on the floor while Scott exchanged travel destinations with Brett, and I grilled Sarah about her life in Germany. 

 "Do you like living in Germany?" I asked Sarah. 

 "No," was her simple and direct answer. 

She was easy to talk to and readily answered my questions, but I noticed a hint of guardedness, as if she were holding back some extra bit of enthusiasm or animation in her answers. 

 "If you could tell me one bit of etiquette that to us would seem completely natural, but to Germans would seem just plain ridiculous, what would it be?" I asked her. 

 "Small talk," she again answered simply. "They don't just ask, 'How are you?' to strangers. "If you ask 'How are you?' they will tell you how hard work is or how sick their mother is; it's not just a polite thing to say, so they think it is strange to ask unless you are a friend who really wants to know." 

 Brett chimed in to expound, "Strangers won't just talk to you to be polite. They won't even say hi to you. They will actually walk right by you and stare at you right in the eyes and not say a word...not even a nod or a smile." "Really?! Not even a smile?" I clarified, incredulous. 

"Really! They stare right at you without even a little smile." 

 As the time passed, more passengers gathered, taking up seats around us. We eventually had to tighten up our belongings and use only 7 chairs between our two families rather than the breadth of 22 seats across which we had sprawled ourselves over the last several hours. I started to hear the curly gutteral sounds of German conversations happening around us and craned my neck to try to understand words here and there.

 I was still reeling from the idea of strangers not smiling at me in Germany. While in Ghana, every single person, young or old, male or female, black or...well black, not only looked at us, but said, "Good Afternoon, How are you?" Every single person who passed by. I actually left Ghana with the self-imposed challenge to do the same in America. I found quickly that it is not our nature in the U.S. to speak to every person who passes us by in the street, but we at least we nod and smile to each other. Now I would have to fathom a place where not even that is the norm. The value of our meager nod and smile set in at that moment. 

 I remembered a sermon our pastor, Andre Daley had given about how close heaven is. He talked about how we can actually make a heaven on Earth simply by being kind to each other...a smile at a passing stranger who is lonely can bring heaven that much closer to them.

 I thought of the loneliness I might feel while in Germany for three months without friends or family, and of how powerful a smile from a stranger could be...along with how painful the absence of the mere smile from a stranger would be. 

 I decided to test Sarah's theory about Germans as we filed into the airplane. We were certainly not flying first class, so we had to pass many rows of Germans returning to Deutschland as we found our seats. I watched each and every face as little Elle, wearing her pink tutu and pulling her Tinkerbell suitcase, passed by them. On domestic flights in the past, nearly every person smiled at Elle and me as she toddled by, assuring me of her sweetness, and in turn mine. But this time, I was devastated to find that every face was stone. They watched us walk by without even a smirk at her cuteness. Just as Sarah said, the Germans did not nod or smile at us. We were strangers. 

By the time I sat in my assigned seat, panic had set in. "Scott," I worried aloud, "I don't think I can handle not having people smile at me for 3 months!" He laughed it off, knowingly.

 For hours, I continued to feel anxiety cramp my insides at the thought of a hell on Earth where fellow human beings stared at each other but didn't share a warm smile. But I realized later, as the plane flew at an altitude of 39,001 feet, 559 mph into the sunrise 2 hours from Stuttgart, that anxiety wasn't the only thing fluttering in my stomach...excitement was there too. I studied the clouds below, a huge pink mountain range supporting a dark blue and lavender horizon, and I reflected. 

Until now, I had honestly not been too excited about this trip. After our adventure in Ghana, where my whole identity had been challenged, where I had found in myself a totally new and stronger person, I felt that no other destination could possibly measure up. I guess I thought, nothing could ever be as powerful of an experience. Yeah, it would surely be interesting to see Germany and tour Europe, but would I come out the other end a whole new me?

 For the first time, I was able to identify a challenge I would have to overcome. I foresaw a scary circumstance I would have to face, a possible weakness within myself that I would have to hone. Sure, it was scary to think of the rejection I may naturally feel when a passerby didn't acknowledge me with a smile, but it seemed that the opportunity to examine myself and change was exciting to me. The chance to see myself differently motivated me to push through this trip and come out the other side a new and stronger person. Maybe Germany would be an exciting adventure after all.