Mystery Solved

When we first arrived in Embken, we noticed that many doors, including the one to our apartment had letters written either on the door or above it. The letters were: 20*C+M+B*09. Sometimes, as in the case of our own door, the last two numbers were 08, but most were 09. Once we started noticing it, we noticed it every where we went. In every village we walked to, and even in the bigger cities we noticed it. We wondered if it were some sort of superstitious thing and, if so, what it meant. I finally got around to asking Mary, our landlady, what it meant. It isn't a superstitious thing at all. Every year at Christmas time, or maybe the New Year (I wasn't clear on that), people come around to every one's house dressed as the Three Wise Men and collect money for children's charities. If you give them money, they mark your door in chalk with the above sign to show that you gave. The letters stand for the names of the Three Wise Men, Caspar of Tarsus, Melchior of Persian, and Balthasar of Saba. And the numbers are the year that you gave. Mary looked a little embarrassed and said that she had been gone this past year when they came and that is why the mark on our door ended in the 08.

Culture Shock

This has been quite a bit different than all of the other trips we have taken. I think that the longest we had been gone before was 3 weeks, so the mindset once we got here has needed to be different. Usually on our trips, we just go-go-go and try to see as many things as we can possibly see while we are here because we know our time is short and we can sleep later. This trip has not been like that since we not only have much more time to see things, but we also have to fit Darren working and life with a toddler into the schedule. It has been a little hard to get used to the fact that most days I am just here in the apartment or around our little village and not out seeing different sights. I know that we will get to it, but I have had to keep reminding myself of that.

Another big change is that although when we traveled before we tried to blend in as much as we could into the cultures that we visited, I see now just how untouched by the culture we were. We never had to do the every day things such as grocery shopping, or trying to translate packages of food, or even just figuring out how to use a cell phone that is programmed in a language we can't yet read. It took me quite awhile to make dinner the other night because I had all my books and the computer on to try to translate what the back of a package of spaghetti mix was telling me.

Although culture shock might be putting a bit strongly, here are a few of the funny stories of the mishaps that have happened to us so far.

We went to the grocery store to pick up a few items on the second day we were there. I knew that we needed sugar for our coffee, which is very strong, and I was pretty proud of myself for knowing the word for "sugar" was "zucker." So, while in the store, I picked up a package with this word on it and we bought it. After using it, we noticed that it didn't mix very well into the drinks and Darren thought that it tasted a little sour. I had noticed that there was the word "Gelier" in front of the word "zucker" on the package, but wasn't able to translate the word from any of the books we had brought or any of the online translation sites that I had found. It wasn't until about a week later that I was having breakfast with my landlady that I thought to ask her about it. She laughed and said, "That isn't for you to eat!" It turns out that it is used for making jam. She very nicely told me that she would trade me for my Gelierzucker and give me some regular sugar for my coffee since she said she would be making jam in the fall anyway.

When we were in the city of Aachen with some of Darren's coworkers, we decided to buy a better German-English dictionary. We found a place that sold them and had practiced out how to ask how much the book cost in German, since it wasn't marked on the book. So, he went up to what he thought was the cashier and said out his German phrase, all while his coworker were snickering behind his back. He said the phrase perfectly, but he wasn't asking at the right place and had to do it all over again.

The last time that we were in the store, Darren picked up what he thought was chocolate milk. He got a surprise when he opened it up and tried to drink it, though, because it turned out to be chocolate pudding in a milk carton.

Settling In

It was a bit of work to settle into life here in Germany. We love our little apartment, which is much bigger and more than we expected, and we love our landlady, Mary, who speaks fairly good English and is very helpful. I just had underestimated how hard it would be to get a toddler to change her internal clock by 9 hours. I knew it would be hard, or thought I did, but it was much harder than I had anticipated, especially when I was dealing with jet lag myself. It was great that Darren didn't have to go to work right away, but was able to stay with us and help figure things out and help deal with a little girl who was miserably tired. It is hard enough to deal with jet lag as an adult when you understand the why of it, but it is even harder for a toddler to understand why we are telling her to go to sleep when she wants to be waking up and waking her up when she thinks she should be sleeping. It was the first or second night that we were here and I got woken up at 3 am with her popping her little head above the portable crib that she is sleeping in while she is here and loudly reciting all the words she knows. It took her a little over a week to really transition and start sleeping through the night. We are very thankful that part is over.

In order to get oriented here and also to let Mikayla have time to get settled here, we stuck around Embken for the most part for the first week we were here. We went on many long walks. This is a very rural area with lots of farms growing wheat, corn, peas, and other things that I am not sure of. There are little villages that are dotted all over the place here, and there are paths and trails that lead between all of them. It has been fun to be able to explore the area like this. Once we locate a bike seat for Mikayla, we hope to do even more exploring by bike. In the mean time, though, we are enjoying being able to get out and walk when the weather is nice. On the first weekend we were here, we were up really early because we still hadn't adjusted to the time change. I think that we were all up and had eaten breakfast and were ready to go by 7 am. So, we went on what ended up being almost a 3 hour walk. There was a lake that we wanted to go see, and then we just kept exploring. Here is a picture of one of the trails we were walking on.

The village we are in is very quaint. Sometimes when I am walking around looking at all the buildings here or in one of the little nearby villages, it is hard to believe that I am actually here. Our village has a little church in the center of it that chimes the hours on the steeple bells, has windy little roads that twist and turn and never really go straight, and most of the buildings were not built in this century or the last. The house we are staying in was built in 1631, although I think it is the oldest around here. Here are a few pictures of our village.