Adventures and the new normal

I got an email the other day from a friend in Minneapolis that I hadn't heard from in a long time. It started with the "how's Germany?" (the question that you know I love to answer), and went on to say "I hope you are having lots of adventures." Nobody ever said that to me before I moved to Germany.

So I asked Brian, "do we have adventures?", though I guess I can answer that question myself. We do have adventures, particularly when traveling. If I knew exactly what would happen every day, I wouldn't enjoy travel nearly as much. Daily life here can be an adventure too, and that's been the main theme of this blog so far. But in year three of life in Hannover, things like going to the post office and buying dairy products get less and less exciting. Life seems pretty normal and the days are fairly routine. Maybe that's why it's been getting harder for me to think of interesting things to post about. Don't worry, you have stuck with me so far and I am not giving up. I just have to think harder about how absurd those 'normal' situations really are.

For instance, yesterday I was in a grocery store which happened to be selling pumpkins, like the real Halloween carving kind of pumpkins, for just 99 cents. So I started to look through the bin and pick one out (I have plans to carve a couple for our Thanksgiving party, because otherwise no one would see them but me and Brian. That's one of the downsides of living on the top floor of an apartment building - no one to walk by and peek in your windows). And a man from somewhere in Africa, who was also pumpkin shopping, said to me in German, "hey that's a good price isn't it?" I agreed, then he asked me why I had put one pumpkin down and decided to take another. I explained that the one I had at home was round, so I wanted a long one. Then we talked about whether they were getting soft or would last a while longer. This situation and the whole conversation are completely absurd. Here I was, talking to a man from, let's say, Nigeria, about the size, shape and price of Halloween pumpkins, in a store in a country where they don't even celebrate Halloween. This is what's normal now.

I had a doctor's appointment earlier this week. I'll spare you the details, but I learned a new German phrase. The nurse told me "Sie konnen sich frei machen," meaning 'you can make yourself free.' I had no idea what that was about - I felt pretty free already. I came of my own will, I live in a highly developed Western society where women have a lot of rights, I can say and do and believe what I please... What she really meant was 'take your clothes off'. After she said it the third time I finally figured it out.

Living here isn't a vacation. It's not exile, it's not a sabbatical... I don't really know what to call it, except it's just life. And it's funny what you can get used to.

I might respond to that email this weekend. Maybe it's been so long since we talked that my friend doesn't know what else to ask. Maybe she can't imagine that daily life in Hannover has more to do with laundry and class and washing dishes than with amazing capers in lederhosen. It's a longer answer than she's expecting, but I guess that's how Germany is.