So having read a bunch of travel blogs recently, I thought
that maybe I should write a disclaimer.
DISCLAIMER: This is not going to be a normal travel blog. If
you are expecting a play by play of my daily life in Germany, it’s not gonna
happen (no one needs to know what I am doing every single day for almost a
year). If you are expecting detailed descriptions of all of the food that I
eat, it’s not gonna happen (no one needs to know the amount of beer I have been
drinking and the number of bags of German candy I have demolished). And if you
are expecting touristy photos of me posing in front of famous monuments, it’s
also not gonna happen (and not just because I have yet to figure out how to
post pictures).
Here’s what you should expect:
1. Descriptions of the funny, weird, awkward, and stupid
stuff that will inevitably happen to me.
2. The occasional post about vegan/dairy-free food and
restaurants, since gorging myself on the local butter-and-milk filled
delicacies is sadly not going to be a thing.
3. Artsy fartsy photos because I’m into that sort of shit
(very much amused myself by adding “fartsy” to my dictionary just now).
4. Long rambling parentheticals and possible footnotes.
And 5. An honest and frank description of what it is like to
leave your job, friends, family, and life behind and start all over in a
foreign country, and some insight into why I travel, why I am interested in
education, and so on and so forth, blah, blah, blah.
Long story short, this isn't going to be some cheerful,
optimistic travel itinerary. I’m going tell it like it really is, because apparently I’m on some kind of weird streak this
year where I have upped my brutal honesty a notch to “has no secrets and tells
no lies”.
So prepare yourselves. It’s gonna get real.
(P.S. Also as an afterthought, if anyone ever has any
questions that they want me to answer or write about, feel free to comment here,
Facebook message me, etc, etc.)
Now, having said all of that, here is the real deal. I have been in Germany for three weeks now, and
yes, I have done some pretty cool stuff so far, but being here has by no means
been easy. I am now slightly stranded here in Hamburg as I wait for my debit
card to arrive to replace the one that was compromised (which I found out about
an hour before I left the United States), my German is sub-par and when I
attempt to speak it the Germans have a habit of just switching to English and
not even trying to teach/humor me, I have destroyed two pairs of headphones in
two weeks (don’t ask), I accidentally dyed all of my bras blue (again, don’t
ask), I have no friends here, the school that I work at is slightly frustrating
(it’s all teenage boys…youths…cue eye roll), I probably will not get paid for
another month-month and a half, I am still not used to the German obsession
with keeping their doors closed (I have been informed repeatedly that it is not
because they are rude/angry, they just like having their doors closed all of
the time…weird) and obeying traffic laws, and all of this is amplified by the
fact that I am alone in a foreign country.
But you know what? I’m going to be okay. I know that this is
just the tricky part, the adjusting part, the part that I have never been good
at. I know that the next stage, when I start to settle in and make an actual
life for myself and build a happy existence, that stage will be amazing. Not
many people get the opportunity to experience something like this, and I can
either resist it and it will happen anyway while I hide in the corner in denial,
or I can embrace it and adapt to my current situation.
And let me tell you, as soon as my debit card gets here and
I have money, I’m gonna go out and “embrace it” and “adapt” by taking myself
out for dinner and more German beer.
Tschuss!
No comments:
Post a Comment