What do I miss?

One of the questions one often gets when one moves is simply, "What do you miss about home?" Of course, this doesn't have to apply for a change of countries. A change of cities will generate the same question. It is, however, compounded when one changes countries (and continents)! So, without further ado...

Well, OK. Here is the "further ado". The obvious thing we miss the most is all of our friends and family. It goes without saying that it is tough to be away from those nearest and dearest to you. The internet helps and being able to call makes a difference, but there is nothing like spending time in person with those close to you. This, in a weird convoluted way, leads to the first thing I miss: Being a native speaker of the primary language. This makes all kinds of everyday tasks more challenging (I got a dressing down at the driver's license office for knowing no German), but it also makes meeting people that much more difficult. We don't want to just hang out with ex-pats (and frankly there aren't that many in this suburb anyway) and natives are less likely to engage when they have to really stretch themselves to speak in English. In fact, this has been the far and away the hardest part of the transition over here: meeting people. Really, we've navigated a lot of the other ins and outs of the move with relative ease (although we have a "change of address" event coming up that may stump us). However, meeting people has been WAY harder than we expected.

Next on the list is food. Don't get me wrong, I like the food here. I just miss the familiar foods from home. I have not had BBQ or TexMex since I left Austin. Sure, we went to a Mexican place in Munich that was pretty good, but it was no Chuy's (creamy!). And we bought chips and salsa at the store that were definitely passable, but it wasn't Taco Deli. I've had a burger or two that were all right. Of course, the fries are good because the Germans do know their way around a Kartoffel. But I miss the real deal. And we have had NO BBQ. I'm not even willing to try. We have had outstanding Italian. The pizzas are often very good. The Greek is different here, but I have generally liked it a lot. There is gelato on every corner of town (see my post about finding the shortest path between two points that DOESN'T pass a gelato place). And, of course, there is the Bavarian food which is also pretty good, but can be a bit bland. So, if you plan to come, figure out a way to bring Franklin BBQ with you! :)

There are other, smaller things I miss. Our temporary apartment does not have a clothes dryer. We plan to have one in our permanent place, but it is a bit of an inconvenience in the mean time. Although we have a normal sized bath/shower combo, I do miss my big old shower that we had just put in the house in Austin. We don't have a TV here that we can really stream to (all my techie stuff in the sea shipment), so I haven't watched much TV. This isn't a terrible thing, but it would be nice to turn on something vaguely mindless every once in a while. A/C is another convenience that isn't common here. We've had a hot couple of weeks (that just broke this evening!) and, while we were able to get to sleep at night with just a sheet covering us, it would be nice to have A/C to take the edge off the heat!

All things considered, we are adjusting pretty well to "Leben in Deutschland", but, dangit what I wouldn't do for a taco and a conversation!


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