Prepare for the longest, most rambling blog post ever...I suggest skimming!



Wenn die Katze fort ist, tanzen die Maeuser!

Well, that's how the German saying goes anyway: When the cat's away, the mice will play.

I came back from Germany to the good news from my mom that she will "NEVER" watch our kids again. If I'm honest, that was clear to me already when I was still in Europe because everytime she picked up the phone it was with a sigh in her voice. The noise and chaos behind her were familiar to me...but were an old and unfamiliar form of torture to her. Many of our phone calls were punctuated by the confessions that she "couldn't do it", "the older kid say that Aidan (4) has never behaved this badly", "Zoe cries for you all of the time" and "so-and-so did such-and-such" with me at a distance that prevented me from coming home and putting an end to what appeared to be...well...misery...at least from my mom's perspective.

Probably the highlights of my kids' mischeviousness involved them not going to bed before midnight and..staying up to watch Comedy Central. Unfortunately, early in our trip, a comedian aired who shared his "Yo Mama" jokes...and my 9 year old decided the next day to entertain the neighborhood with them. What I was able to decipher when I was in Germany is that one of the kids told his mom and the mom marched over to my house to confront my mom. This particular mother knew that I was gone, but apparently couldn't handle it herself and then wait until I got back. My mom grounded Alex and had him write a letter of apology to the other mother. Alex was very upset and felt bad. All-in-all, he is a very good kid and we never have problems with him misbehaving. Instead of reading the letter and using this as a teachable moment, the mom ripped it up in front of Alex's face, kicked him in the shin (no SHIT!) and told him to "get away, you snotty-nosed brat". Amanda had gone with Alex to give her the letter and was horrified by the exchange. This mom then proceeded to tell the other neighbors what had happened.

Seriously...I cried after I got off of the phone. The contrast between being able to walk, shop, read and spend uninterrupted time with Thomas....to watch tv, get online at an internet cafe....and the life that was waiting for me was too big. I don't understand why some people have to be such asshats.

To really rub it all in, the night after we got back, this mom had an all-boys sleepover at her house and excluded one child from the neighborhood....Alex.

Of course, yesterday when we set up the big blow-up waterslide, her kids were permitted to come over here and play all day.

Anyway, in all fairness to my mom, she hasn't ever watched the kids for more than a night. There are 5 of them. It IS overwhelming...and she did a great job...better than she thinks that she did.

The trip was wonderful in so many ways....I'll start at the beginning.

I haven't flown since 2000...and...being in true chaotic form, I wasn't actually packed just a couple of hours before we were set to leave for the airport. I didn't get a chance to get ready because...

drumroll please...

I cleaned out the turtle cage with the kids from the neighborhood and...managed to get us all infected with a nasty case of Salmonella!

ugh.

I literally was up one night laying on the bathroom floor for hours with the most horrible stomach affliction you could possibly imagine. The next day (a Monday, I think), I could not get out of bed. I seriously couldn't get up to do anything beyond getting to the bathroom. The fact that I couldn't eat or drink anything made those trips few and far between. The vomiting and diarrhea had subsided enough that all I could do was sleep. I couldn't even watch tv, I was so ill. It was truly terrible. Even worse was that Thomas' partner was out a couple of days and the service was crazy busy. He didn't get home that night until after 8pm despite my calls begging him to come and tend to his "most important patient". Actually, being married to an ID specialist has remarkably few advantages. He took one cursery glance at me and decided rather quickly that he didn't want anything to do with me: "No offense, but...I'm going to sleep downstairs." Without my 12 and 13 year old children, I never would have survived it!!!

Of course, I had the last laugh when my husband (despite his comment about handwashing and samonella) came down with the same little stomach affliction. That's what he gets for dumping out the turtles' water and then not washing his hands! It was really unpleasant though and unfortunately, all of the neighborhood kids who had contact with the turtles that day ended up sick. I ended up going from house to house to let the moms know that I had gotten ill only to find out that their children were sick as well. One of my friends here started calling me "typhoid Kris".

All of this made our journey to Germany a little mit more complicated because Thomas fell ill on Thursday...and we were leaving on Friday. He had to cancel his clinic on Thursday and I was busy trying to get the house ready, the family map updated for my mom and pack while he laid in bed moaning unable to move. On Friday before we left, he ran into work to prepare a sign-out sheet for his partner while I got copies of our consent-to-treat forms notarized just in case.

I didn't even manage to get my laundry done. I actually bought...two new pairs of shorts and some new t-shirts to pack on my way home that morning. There were so many last-minute details to finish that I actually got home Friday morning 10 minutes after we already should have left for the airport. I had to drive because Thomas was so ill that he couldn't manage it.

The airplane ride itself was quite the adventure. Half of my big behind was able to enjoy the seat! LOL

We arrived in Frankfurt and the first thing that we did was get some Euros...after all, it was the only way to pay in europe. It was incredibly exciting...Thomas and I completely forgot the pain of the salmonella and all of the ugliness of the week and immersed ourslelves in our lives together pre-family...pre-kids...pre-everything.

Our fist picture is of Thomas getting Geld (Money)...oh..and there was a great deal of handing out money that we don't yet have that week!



Then, there was the trip to Giessen...the city that he and I both went to University in...where we met...where we fell in love...where we decided to marry. This is the town where we spent our first three days....

Us on the train to Giessen:




Yes, I know I'm fat...oh well.

The train trip was a little...strange. It felt like we had never left Germany. After so many years, it was amazing that it felt so familar...and that our lives in America felt so fremd...so...not our own. From the moment we hit the Flughaven in Frankfurt it was as if we had never left. I recognized the Flughaven (airport), the Bahnhof (train station)....and within 15 minutes of landing, the language seemed...well..normal. Probably my beiggest self-esteem boost came from the owner of the first hotel we stayed at. He knew that we were arriving from America and that we lived there....and after talking with me, he assumed that Thomas was the American. I know that is a shameless brag...but it felt good to be...competent at something. Again...my grammar isn't always perfect, but I can speak German well enough to assimilate. It felt really good.

We arrived at the Giessen Hauptbahnhof

and that is where our adventure officially began.

Giessen is where Thomas and I met...verliebeten uns (fell in love) and ultimately decided that we couldn't live without the other....

We walked for hours each day..through the Innenstadt, the universtiy clinics...our old Wohnungen (apartments). All of this, of course, has no meaning to anyone BUT us...but...for us it was very important!

We met when I was doing a psych rotation on a closed unit...with schizophrenics and other seriously ill patients. He was...a PJtler (finishing up a 3 month block of clerkships). I had helped a psych prof with english translations of a book and had been granted a much saught after prakticukum. We came together auf Station 2 ( Unit 2), where my job was to sit with the shizophrenic patients who were completely psychotic and even sometimes urinated right in front of me or to walk with a mom who had ocd and was convinced she would harm her children somehow...some way....
15 year laters...ugh...and 100 pounds heavier....ugh...ugh..ugh...This is at the cafeteria where we ate together every day many years ago. We thought it was so much bigger, and were surprised by the fact that it was

1. so small

and

2. so far away from the unit we worked on. Actually, everything seemed smaller and different than we remembered!

So many things had changed. We both became very reflective about what was different about Giessen and what had changed in our own lives. Though 15 years have passed since we lived in Giessen, I think part of us had hoped it would all be the same. Life wouldn't go on there without us... But life does change and it opened up a very emotional discussion from both of us about the choices that we have made and the experiences that we have had over the last 15 years of our lives that have changed us. Giessen is not the same...we didn't even recognized the Bahnhofstrasse because not a single shop that we knew was still there. But...we are the not the same people and....we are also probably unreconizable to those who knew us 15 years ago.

It's a conversation that we circled around many times...voicing regrets, fear...and joy...about the lives that we are living now...

The ironic twist ending to our trip to Giessen is that as we were waiting for the train to take us to Stuttgart, we ran into a young American who had been a member of the exact same exchange program that I had been. It was his final day, and he was heading home....changed by the experience, happier, more confident....His girlfriend had come from America to pick him up and they squabbled for much of the trip. He and I shared our experiences and I know that in his mind he couldn't imagine that in his life 15 years would ever pass....He kept saying "15 years....WOW!) Yep, Wow. A lot can happen in 15 years!

While we were in Giessen, we walked for what seemed like forever (up to 6 or even 7 hours a DAY) through the forests that we had spent time in, the university clinics that we worked at, the city center...
(Thomas at one of the main entrances to the University Hospital)


The Cafeteria where we ate together before we were a couple. Was it really so small? really?

On the way to lunch, we often stopped at an Imbiss to pick up a magazine, gum, breath mints or...well..anything. Thomas and I were barely speaking because I saw him as an arrogant German and he saw me as an idiotic American. One day, the Spiegel magazine came out with an article on impotence. We came into the Imbiss to get something and in a very loud voice, I mentioned (in German) that perhaps Thomas should buy the magazine...maybe it would help him with his impotence problem.

Obviously, I was joking. We were more like...frenamies back then, but to this day he contends that THAT was THE day...where he noticed me...wanted me...realized that he couldn't live without me.....the day where I, the Ami...put him in his place.



Here it is...the Klinik Imbiss ... the little shop that represented the "beginning".

Thomas and I worked together 10 hour days...sometimes more... The unit we worked on was infamous for its issues and...for a lead psychiatrist who would walk into "group therapy", look at the ceiling and proceed to let the most ill patients have the center stage while Thomas and I (with our vastly LIMITED experience) scrambled to create order and provide resources...


(Standing in front of Station 2Das ElephantenKlo (basically, the elephant toilet...a traffic exchange in the city center)


I walked across the top of this bridge so many days.....Great artwork to match the name, painted directly on the bridge itself

The parking lot where we met for our first date

Mack's Grill In....the little restaurant near our apartment where we often enjoyed Tomato and onion salads. When I informed my parents that I had gotten a job and was staying in Germany (weeks before I was expected home after my exchange year) they flipped out and jumped in a plane within 24 hours. We met them at Mack's Grill in and when my mom and I went to the bathroom, my dad turned to Thomas and said "It's a small world. If you hurt my daughter, I'll find you." I remember coming back to the table and seeing the shock in Thomas' eyes...then later laughing together over what my dad had said!

The apartment we shared together:

We couldn't remember which room was ours and then....we were surprised to discover that the stain from our barbecue grill was STILL on the wall outside. (See, some things don't change!)

The woods near our apartment where we decided to get married...on our first date...LOL:


My student dorm in the Gruenberger Strasse...it was near the military base where I often shopped and did laundry. Thomas and I went to the movies there on some weekends....The entire military base was closed...the buildings were dark...quiet...unutilized. It was just several miles of the end of a chapter in a history book, where the future remains unwritten.



Alright...I confess...I also did my fair share of shopping, shopping, shopping in the Fussgaengerzone!



Me with the city gossips


Thomas in front of a fountain


The New Castle and it's extra building:



Cobblestone streets...we really took it all in!


We had only planned on staying 2 days in Giessen, but we extended our stay by a day because we didn't feel ready to leave. By the third day, we had found a peaceful place with everything and we were ready to head on to Stuttgart.

Stuttgart offered us many great things, but the best part of all might have been that the hotel we stayed in actually had air conditioning! As a spoiled American, I spent a lot of time sweating as we walked through the towns and shops, dined in the restaurants and rode the S-Bahn. Coming in at night to the air conditioning was a little slice of heaven!

Once in Stuttgart, we lived a more relaxed pace. We spent much of our first day walking through the city center and making final purchases for our kids.

On our second day, we ventured back to Marbach am Neckar, the town we lived in for roughly 5 months...until we were kicked out because....I didn't participate in the Kehrwoche.

Yes.

In Southern Germany it is common for people to tend to their staircases, streets and sidewalks once a week. The entire community that lives in the building is expected to take part in this cleanapalooza...which is fine...but no one actually mentioned this little tidbit of information to me.

Germans, you see, are very fixated on their Ordnung.

Despite my apologies, and Thomas' attempts at smoothing things over, the insult that I had presented was just more than any german could expect to be able to forgive....so we moved....Still, our time in Marbach was magical. It is a beautiful, beautiful town!





The church that we got married in.


The restaurant where we celebrated our wedding.


The birth house of Friedrich Schiller


We walked that day from 9am until 8 pm....with only a few breaks to grab a cold drink and then get on the train to visit another town.

On our way back from Marbach, we stopped off in Ludwigsburg for old times sake. I bought a medium drink from the McDonalds that cost me over $4.00. Whoa!

We also got off in Kornwestheim, the city where we lived when Andrew was born....but everything was different there. The city has been in social decline and the entire city center was closed down. We were disoriented and couldn't find our way to our apartment. After over an hour of walking, we turned back with the understanding that maybe....the next time we are in Germany...we'll find it.

Stuttgart was relaxing.

We spent time drinking Diesel (beer with coke in it), having ice cream, sitting out on the grass in the center of the city and enjoying each others' company.




The vacation was over before we were ready. I could have stayed another month...another...YEAR! LOL.

The honest truth is that coming home was harder than I imagined it would be. I felt guilty about it. It led me to question a lot about myself. What I have finally come to terms with is that I have spent the last 15 years supporting my husband in his career...doing the best that I can to raise my children....and somehow...I have fallen out of the equation for the most part. Though there are snippets in time where I get to momentarily come up for a bit of air, I'm kind of...drowning here. This vacation solidified in me the understanding that I need to do more to take care of myself. It made me realize that going back to school...is absolutely the best thing that I can do for myself right now...Though I understand that working adds another layer of stress to our lives, it is something that I crave...and that's ok.

Another thing to come out of this trip was the realization that I am right now at a place in my life where...I belong....and that feels good. I spent my entire childhood moving across the globe for my dad's military career and much of my adult life chasing my husband from city to city. It has been 7 years since my husband finished fellowship and we moved her to this community. Wow. Seven years. That is the longest I have ever lived anywhere. When I got back from Germany, my cell phone was full of messages...and the phone didn't stop ringing for 24 hours.

While I was busy wallowing in a little self-pity, a friend of mine popped over to "give me a hug" because, as she put it....she knew how I was "really" feeling about coming home. It was such a wonderful surprise and I was so taken aback by her kindness and the fact that as a mom, she knew exactly what I was going through and wasn't afraid to honestly share that with me. "The first couple of days are rough...you'll get used to it again though," she said. I had no idea that what I was feeling was normal. What a relief.

Later, I went over to the Internal Med Clinic to drop off some chocolates that we had bought. Thomas got chocolates for his nurses but forgot them at home. He wanted me to bring them over... While I was there, Barb (my internist) came out of one of the exam rooms and heard my voice...she walked straight into the office and greeted me with the warmest hug and an "Oh, I was thinking about you this morning...wondering if you guys were back already, how your trip was, hoping you would stop by when you got back..." and I just felt...good.

My inbox filled up with messages from friends wondering if we had returned, how the trip was...

I felt...well...loved. Isn't that funny. I haven't ever really belonged anywhere before and it took me leaving and coming back to realize that I do belong here now.

We had a great time....and....have decided to buy a small (VERY) apartment near Stuttgart so that we can start coming back to Germany more often. It was so wonderful to have time alone with Thomas...and now that I have adjusted to getting back home...it is so nice to be back with the kids again.....[/quote]