We celebrated Thanksgiving with three Americans and their German wives and one Australian and her German husband. We were the only All-American family. The best part of this celebration was not the turkey and stuffing, although they were very good, but spending time with Americans who seemed content with their lives in Erlangen. They had some complaints, which is part of human nature, but they had no regrets about choosing to live in Germany over the USA.

Bob and I chose to move back to Erlangen, because we preferred everyday living in German over our everyday lives in Chicago. Unfortunately, many people on both sides of the Atlantic don't seem to understand this. "You'll regret moving to Europe and leaving the greatest country in the world." "Why would you leave an exciting city like Chicago to come back to Erlangen?" (I have to add that many people encouraged us to grasp this opportunity. Unfortunately, it's the words of those you tried to discourage us that stand out in my head.)

Sure, Chicago is an exciting city, if you don't have children. I found it hard to live there with kids. My biggest complaint was having to drive everywhere. I hate driving a car--I prefer riding a bike, and our first year back from Erlangen, I tried to survive without a car. But, traveling by bike in Chicago is dangerous. There aren't many bikepaths, and the few paths that exist share space on busy streets with reckless drivers (Germans are better at following the rules-of-the-road). It would have been stupid of me to allow my kids to ride their bikes on the Elston or Lawrence Ave. bikepaths. Erlangen has safe bikepaths--that is, safe for bikers. Heaven help the pedestrian that steps onto the red-bricks that designate the Fahrradweg.

I hated the competitiveness of many parents I met in Chicago. "Are you trying to get your kids into the gifted-programs?" "Have you signed them up for baseball?" "What did Philip get on the last math test?" And all the kids in Chicago are perfect, they have no faults, at least according to their parents. They are all Albert Einsteins and Joe DiMaggios. In Erlangen, children have limitations, and their parents are not afraid to talk about them. I hated it when my competitive side was released on my children. "Michael already knows how to count money. How come you don't, Philip?" "Did you see how many goals Patrick scored?' "Matthew got into a gifted-program and he doesn't seem any smarter than you." I also hated trying to keep up with the Jones's children. I had Philip in soccer, basketball, t-ball, ice hockey, piano, etc. Here parents think one (maybe two) extracurricular activity is enough.

And then there was shopping in Chicago. Because we lived on the Northwest side of Chicago where there aren't many small independently-owned shops, I often had to shop at Target. It always took me about an hour just to buy a bottle of shampoo, socks for the kids, and Milk-Bones. After a few trips, you'd think I'd remember where to find everything, and yet it took about a dozen trips for me to figure out where things were shelved. Then, of course, I had to go back to the same Target everytime, because I didn't want to have to search again. Here, I have to make several stops--the bakery, butcher, fruit market, Schlecker (the German version of Walgreens), but because the stores are small, I can find everything I need quickly. And the service is impecable. Just tell them what you want--a porkloin, one hundred grams of salami, half a kilogram of pears--and they'll pick out the best they have. No more rummaging through damaged fruit or blood-smeared plastic covered meat. No more staring at a wall of shampoo or Zip-Loc bags. The variety is still here, but not the overwhelming quanitity of 100 bottles of Motrin, 50 tablets, or 100 bottle of Motrin, 100 tablets.

Of course, the most obvious reason for wanting to live in a foreign country is so that my children grow up bilingual. Sure, you can send your kids to a foreign language school. Philip and Alex spent Saturday mornings learning German. But the best way for children to learn another language is by playing with children who do not speak English. Philip spoke German with his teacher in Chicago, but I know he spoke in terse sentences. With the other kids, he had long conversations in English. Sometimes I still speak to the boys in Ukrainian, but all they will learn from me is how to make small talk. To learn German, or any other language, to the extent that they know English requires that learn how to have deep conversations with their peers in their new language. They need to know how to describe the details of the last Harry Potter movie or the latest Mario game in German.

We flew out of Chicago on July 31, 2006, one of the hottest days of the summer, 99 degrees F. Because we were flying with Oscar, our Lab, we were able to check in separately of all the crowds waiting in line for international flights. All went smoothly until the woman checking us in looked at her cage-spec sheet. She told us we couldn't use the carrier we had brought with us, because it was designed for domestic flights, not international. For domestic flights, the pet carrier needs to ventilated on only three sides, whereas for international, it needs to be ventilated on all four sides. We had borrowed the carrrier from Bob's sister and brother-in-law, who had flown their Bernese from Chicago to Connecticut, and we wouldn't have borrowed it if we had known about the different specifications, which could have easily been posted on United's website but wasn't. I learned from their website about the health certificate, which is not the same as the health certificate required for importing a dog into the EU--more on this another time, required for traveling with a pet, and that because of his size, he would have to travel in baggage instead of in the cabin (when we moved to Erlangen in 2001 and back again in 2004, our cat, Nigel, flew in business class with us). I don't understand why they couldn't add a paragraph about the pet carrier requirements, or why don't they just have the same requirements for both domestic and international--are pets more likely to suffocate during longer flights than shorter?

We ended up buying a pet carrier from United, and leaving the borrowed, domestic carrier behind at the airport. The woman at check-in wanted to ship the extra carrier with us, but what were we going to do with two carriers in Erlangen? One of the baggage handlers overheard this, and offered to hold it until someone could pick it. Bob tipped him $10 and called his parents, who came later to O'Hare and tipped our new friend a couple of extra dollars.

We arrived in Frankfurt on the morning of August 1, and we were met by our friend Sigi and his daughter, Pauline, and son, Jasper. Because of the dog and all of our luggage, we decided to rent a car instead of catching a connecting flight to Nuernberg. It was definitely easier than transferring planes, but driving for two hours jet-lagged, is probably about as wise as driving drunk. We had to keep pulling over for coffee, and Sigi kept us awake via walkie-talkie from his car. Sigi also helped us by transporting some of our luggage, since we had extra bags due to Bob's shopping sprees before leaving Chicago.

Before leaving the airport, I was worried about getting Oscar through customs. When we brought Nigel into Germany, it was no problem. He was in a small, black carrier sitting on top of all our luggage. I had all the paper work ready, but the customs guy told us to just go on through the gate. I don't think he even realized we had a pet with us. Oscar, at 60 pounds and in a large carrier, was not going to go unnoticed. I wasn't worried about the paper work, because I did have an official animal exportation stamp from the USDA, which is a story in itself. I was worried about his microchip. All animals coming into the EU must be microchipped, but American microchips use a different frequency than European chips. I called Avid, the company that made Oscar's chip, and they recommended that I rent a scanner from them since they were not certain whether the scanners at Frankfurt's airport would pick up his chip. I spent $38 and a day waiting for FedEx to deliver the scanner, only to find out that the veterinarian at the airport had no problem scanning his chip.

After arriving in Erlangen, we went to Gasthof Strauss, which serves really good carp in their restaurant, to get the key to our temporary apartment. This was a small, three-room (by three rooms, I mean one kitchen/living/dining room and two small bedrooms) apartment in a building that was built in the early 1700s. For six weeks, I looked at the wooden beams sandwiched between thick plaster in the walls of this apartment, and asked myself, "Are these the original beams? Have they been holding this building together for three hundred years?" In Madison, I lived in a house built in the late 1800s, and I thought that was old. In Europe, some buildings are 1000 years old.

The days in that apartment seem like a dream to me now. The shock of moving to another country and an entire ocean away from home hit me, and I spent our first month and a half in Erlangen walking in quicksand. Every step I took, everything we did seemed so difficult. I felt as if at any moment I would sink into oblivion. All I wanted to do was sleep. For the first two weeks, I blamed the jet lag, but then realized it was remorse. We had moved away from a nice house in a nice neighborhood to a foreign (okay, so we had lived here before, but it was still foreign in all meanings of the word) city, thinking it would be a better place to raise our kids. But what if we were wrong?

The kids and I took the bus into downtown Erlangen on Saturday, November 11, to participate in the St. Martin's Day parade. A Roman soldier on horseback led the procession of children carrying paper lanterns illuminated by either candles or battery-powered lights. A marching band followed and everyone sang songs about St. Martin or their lanterns. The only one I knew begins, "Laterne, Laterne, Sonne, Mond, und Sterne." Kaufhof, a large department store in Erlangen, sponsered the parade, and passed out free lanterns and brotchen (buns) for the children.

On Monday, the 13th, Alex's kindergarten celebrated St. Martin's as well with singing at our local Catholic church, St. Theresia, and then an Umzug (parade) around the neighborhood. This time, Alex carried a lantern he had made in kindergarten. It was the shape of a duck with colored tissue paper along the sides and front so that it glowed when the candle inside was lit. Afterwards, we ate Wieners and drank Gluehwein, with alcohol for the adults and without for the kids.

St. Martin's day commemorates Bishop Martin of Tours, who, as a soldier with the Roman Empire, had come across a beggar on a cold night. Martin got off his horse, used his sword to cut his cloak in half, and gave one half to the beggar. This event inspired him to become a bishop.

When we were living in Germany before, this became my favorite holiday, partly because we don't celebrate it in the U.S., but more so because it is so simple and yet so much fun.

On Wednesday, July 19, 2006, a tow truck pulled up in front of our house on Kenneth Ave. in Chicago.

"I'm here to pick up a Toyota Camry," said the driver.

"Yes, well, that's my husband's car, but he took it to Hoffman Estates this morning because he wasn't expecting you until 4," I told him. "I'll call him, but I'm not sure when he can get here."

"That's okay. I can wait."

And that's when it hit me--we were moving to Germany! Again!

In November, 2001, we went through the same process, but without the car. The difference was that in 2001, Bob signed a two-year contract, and this time, an open-ended contract. The first time, our stay in Germany would be finite. This time, we didn't know, and still don't know, how long we would be here. I was fine with this idea, until the day they packed our furniture, clothes, toys, and car into a container. Bob and I were numb that day, and I remember only bits and pieces of July, August and September. For two and half months, I felt as if I were trapped in twilight sleep.

The foreman of the moving crew kept telling us that we weren't going to have enough space in our container for all our furniture and the car, which would go in last. We might have to leave behind our couch and two large upholstered chairs. One of the movers, the one with the Grim Reaper tattooed on his arm, said we had plenty of space. The tow truck driver recommended that we fill the trunk of the car and put the bikes on the roof rack, just in case we needed the extra space. We agreed, and without thinking, we just started throwing things into the car. Later, we had no idea what we had packed into the car, and which bikes had ended up on top of the car. And if they were secure. Would all the bouncing around in the container as it crossed the Atlantic by ship cause the bikes to come crashing down on top of the car?

In the end, the mover with the Grim Reaper was right--we had enough space. I still decided to leave behind the upholstered chairs. The tow truck left with our car and bikes. At the loading docks, a wall was built to separate our furniture and stuff from the car--afterall, we didn't want our boxes to end up on the hood of the car. The car was then driven into the container and secured. We were told by the moving company that it would take four to six weeks for our container to arrive in Germany. It took seven due to delays by U.S. Customs in New York.

Halloween in Erlangen

Last week was Halloween, and I felt guilty--again! After living in Chicago for two years and experiencing Halloween parties, a haunted police station and trick-or-treating, Halloween in Erlangen, Germany, was disappointing for the boys. I never really liked Halloween. Just too much fanfare for a holiday centered around collecting candy, half of which I would find months later cached in their closet. But, this year I really missed all the homes decorated with ghosts and ghouls that light up and howl when you walk by them. I missed all the kids in costumes wandering around our neighborhood.

Halloween is a young holiday in Germany, and Europe. When we lived here from 2002 to 2004, stores sold a few costumes and paraphernalia--we bought a small, battery-operated skeleton that sings something about "scaring you home." This year I noticed more costumes and Halloween decor in shops and homes. There seemed to be a lot more jack-o'-lanterns in front of houses and apartments, too. Unfortunately, we didn't see anyone trick-or-treating. We saw a group of girls in witch costumes walking down our strasse (street), but they were not carrying bags for candy collecting.

Philip dressed in his Grim Reaper costume from last year and Alex as a pirate, and they went to a small party in the park across the street--a party hosted by Americans living in Erlangen. They got some candy there, and our German neighbors gave them chocolates. Although most of the candy they collected this year was what we bought them earlier that day at Handelshof, our local supermarket. After dark, we took them for a walk in the forest near our apartment. Bob and Oscar, our dog, ran ahead and jumped from behind a tree as we walked past. The boys were scared, which is what they wanted on Halloween. I think they had fun, but it just wasn't as exciting for them as Halloween had been in Chicago. And again, I feel that maybe it was a mistake to move them so far away, not only physically, but culturally as well.