New stories for my friends

I´ve always wanted to write and tell stories. This blog started with my moving to Germany, and it was initially only in my native language, Romanian, so that my friends back home can hear about my “adventures” in my new country. After the initial wondering and admiration for my new country have calmed down a little, and after the healthy self-doubts showed up (like “do I really have something interesting to say?”) here I am with a new try – this time in English as well.

And with a new challenge to write stuff in a language which is not my mother tongue.
I will tell you stories about what happens now, but also what I found interesting in my latest happenings in Germany.. such as:

• I got married. I know, lots of people do that. For me it was an interesting experience to get married and have a wedding party in Germany, which was so totally different than all the weddings in Romania – where I was becoming a professional bride´s maid. So maybe I will tell you why this was interesting and different.


• Just like most young families, kids were also on the menu. Our first is dancing and kicking in my belly as I am writing right now, and is due in November as a Scorpion boy.


• Altogether this last couple of years there´s been the economic recession and the world is making steps to learn again new rules of the game. It hasn´t affected me more than changing the project that I was working for and travelling less. Who knows, I might have gotten better projects.. I might have done more wonderful things if the economy continued to boom. But at the end, I was happy to have a job at all during this time.


• My mom followed me and moved to Germany. Besides the intricate family relationship which makes my husband believe that I never managed to grow up or cut the umbilical cord that connects me to my mom, I think it was a good move. Even if it shocked my mom´s family and friends back in Romania, as she sold her apartment and decided to move in a new country, at the age of almost 60. And that´s how we started new bureaucratic adventures and getting a new source of amazement at my mom´s progress in speaking German language – with the inherent involuntary humor that comes with it.


• The fabulous and young German football team has won the third place in the recent world championship. And I find myself asking myself: how comes I got so interested in football? I mean, for heaven´s sake, I hardly know what an off-site is, or why those guys dressed in black whistle all the time. But I loved it, I must say: the excitement, the psychology of the teams, the surprises and last but not least the Octopus Paul. That´s my first and last football comment but I tell you: in the day that Octopus Paul foresaw Germany´s defeat in the semifinals, my colleagues were literally panicking in the office, swearing at Paul, at the weather and also at each other for being so superstitious.
  

If you´re wondering why this blog is in English, and not in German, well, maybe I will tell you some of the adventurous things I sometimes say in German and you´ll understand. Germans are a very nice people – probably to compensate with the difficulty of their language´s Grammatik – but I have to agree with Mark Twain and his followers, that it´s almost impossible to learn this language correctly in a life time - unless you´re growing up learning it. That´s not an excuse: I am making progress, seriously.

And if you ever decide to come to Germany and try speaking German, you will be amazed how many compliments you can receive for your efforts. Germans are really too polite and too nice – and I can happily live with that.