Desperate Housewives of Hannover, season 2

We are going to take a break from the Hannover Photo Safari for today. I know you are disappointed. But I realized that it's been a long time since I wrote about the Desperate Housewives of Hannover. A quick review: the  Hausfrauen are the group of friends that I was lucky to meet shortly after moving here. What we have in common are husbands that found jobs in Hannover, causing us to quit ours and move here too. The name is a little facetious, but the truth is we have a lot more free time than we used to and there's often some kind of drama cooking. My LA friend Giulia has even talked about writing a script out of it, but I don't know if the average viewer would get into the expat lifestyle in the un-glamorous setting of Hannover. Or maybe that's our angle...

Here's what has been happening in season two:

There's a new character this season, Olga Elena. She's Serena's Colombian friend from German class who is here because she married a Serbian-German husband that she met in Spain. After 2 years of intensive German, Olga is trying to get a job in finance. Since most companies require that candidates speak three languages, she is working on her English with me and Serena. And I am loving a chance to speak Spanish with her. Olga recently got her German drivers' license, which requires taking classes, exams, a behind-the-wheel test and paying about 2,000 euros.

Serena is pregnant, with the baby girl due in May, and moving to a new apartment this weekend. Her opera singer husband Ed has been traveling France auditioning for future shows and she's given up German class in order to focus on the baby.

Kaska is working on getting a new job or another job in addition to working part-time for the city of Hannover. She's all about ice skating this winter and just bought her own tiny pair of used skates. She and German husband Thorsten are planning the epic Bosseln ball-throwing game in February, and Brian and I just booked a trip to Krakow with them for May.

Renee has had a rough year of ups and downs when she got married, lost her father, then went home for Christmas and her brother-in-law died. Her small dog always seems to eat life-threatening amounts of people food, and now she's looking for work. She's decided that the best way to learn more German is by finding a job, which is not easy when she would need some kind of contract before getting a work permit.

Charlotta, the polish bombshell-super mom is a recurring character. So is Susi, the only true German in our show and Serena's pregnancy/medical-care-in-Germany resource. 

As for me, I am working in a very low-responsibility role subbing at the international school, while building myself a very high-responsibility one as I co-found a nonprofit organization. More on that in the coming episodes. My husband Brian has recently been told that the school wants to offer him a contract when the 2 year stint is up this summer, so it looks like we'll be staying here a while longer. Nothing has been signed yet, however, and more drama can always unfold in the meantime.

There are not as many four hour lunches now as in season one, but we still find time to get together to discuss which of us has the craziest mother-in-law and why Germans need to put winter tires on their cars while Minnesotans do not.

Stayed tuned to see what your favorite characters are up to in the next episode.