The Epic of the Last Two Months (Part 1)

Things have been changing a lot over the past few months and only now is it kind of settling into a place where I can actually comprehend everything that’s happened. Because of time limits, I’m gonna have to do this in sections, so bear with me.

About four days after I last posted, Kilian came home from preschool with a stomach flu. He was feverish and throwing up and passed the plague onto Lena. Lena thankfully was better after about 24 hours, but with Kilian it clung. That Monday, Anna and Gerd were scheduled to fly out to London and I was going to have the kids alone for three days, with aid from the neighbors/substitute grandparents.

That morning, Kilian was still sick, Lena wasn’t totally healed, and Hannah was pretty cranky, which was reading as a sign she would get sick too. So Gerd decided to stay home and Anna flew out alone. Which turned out to be a miracle, because about half hour after they left the house, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my head down because I felt like I was going to vomit. In the end, only Gerd and Hannah were spared, but Anna did her vomiting in London.

The next week was drastically below par and, in fact, my time here had never really reached what we all hoped it would be. Anna, feeling dissatisfied with Biology, had stopped going to classes about the same time that I started to get good enough at the language to be comfortable and her constant presence felt stifling to me. I quickly started questioning every decision I made because she was always there as a second authority and every decision felt like it was going to be a misstep.

It also blurred the line between what was my time and what was work time. Suddenly my job had shifted between about 25 hours of clearly defined work a week, to this strange fuzzy place, where I had no clear off time outside of the three hours the kids spend at school in the morning. Add into this that, while they were sick, Kilian and Hannah were desperate that their mother should care for them and that I should have nothing to do with them and you have a very exhausting situation in which I am always working and always failing.

December 26th, I flew out for a trip to London. I had spend Christmas with the family and it was adorable and good, but I still hadn’t shaken the longing to leave that had developed during the Sick Time, probably because now we were all dealing with the cold that had picked up right as the stomach flu was fading, particularly with Kilian. As Gerd drove me out to the airport, he informed me that there was a pretty good chance that Anna would be taking a break from college the next semester and we needed to have a Talk upon my return in order to decide whether or not I would be staying, and what I would be doing were I to stay.

The news came as a relief. An opening. An option. I could leave if I needed to. If I wanted to.

But we all needed time to think and so we agreed to think about it over New Years and that there would be a decision on their side by the 6th when I was scheduled to return. And so I flew off to the most needed vacation I had ever taken.

Subservience

Okay, so I’m not going to say which child I had this conversation with, all I’m going to say is that it happened.

Now, the family has a small minivan that they use when transporting the whole family. It has five normal seats (two front, three middle) and then an extra seat that can be removed. The seat in the back has to be accessed from the trunk. For practical reasons, this back seat is my seat. I think it’s a bit funny that I get in and out through the trunk, and it really is the only thing that makes sense. However, when Gerd or Anna isn’t with, I sit up in front. So it’s not like I’m permanently exiled to the back or something.

Yesterday, however, we were driving to the girls gymnastics performance for Christmas. Kilian was sick and so Anna decided to stay at home with him. Grandma Isolde had made the trip in from Linz to see the girls though, so she obviously got to sit shotgun. Gerd was nice enough to pull Kilian’s car seat out and put it in the trunk so that I could sit up front with the girls. On the way there, I didn’t notice this until after I was set up in my usual seat though, so I just sat in the back. On the way home though, I nauturally sat in the middle row. As I climbed in I had the following conversation with the girl sitting next to me:

Child: “You can’t sit there.”
Me: “Normally not, but since Kilian can’t come your Dad put his seat in the back.”
Child: “But you can’t sit there. You have to sit in the back.”
Me: “Why?”
Child: “Because I have to put my bag there.”
Me: “Don’t talk nonsense. Sit down and I’ll buckle you up.”
Child: “You can’t sit there!”

At this point Gerd intervened and told her to sit down. The girl remained angry for the rest of the ride home and wouldn’t talk to me, unless I spoke loudly enough that Gerd would hear and force her to answer. But the feeling still stayed with me. At that point in time, this child felt as though her paper sack of peanuts was more deserving of the place next to her than I was. Really honestly thought that. And she’s the exception in the family, but it’s still striking.

Which kind of touches on a central awkwardness of this situation. I am essentially a servant, as much as we like to avoid that word these days. I live with a family and my job is to help them. Granted, I am a very well treated servant, and am very much treated like an equal, but when it comes down to it, the families needs and desires come before mine and if I’m not willing to acknowledge that term and condition, I’m not only out of a job, I’m out of a place to live.

And that’s a very strange place for a strong-headed, mid-upper class, American feminist to be in. On one hand, I’m ridiculously grateful for this place to live and food to eat and having everything provided in exchange for just watching their kids and helping with the housework, and on the other hand it’s very grating to feel subservient, even in the lightest sense. And it’s also interesting to see how it kind of makes Anna and Gerd uncomfortable as well.

I started running into this last summer as well, when I was working as a janitor at a bulldozer factory (I know, right?). I was working in this plant of union guys who probably did not think of themselves as being very high up on the totem pole of society. But they were skilled labor. And they were unionized. And then here I was cleaning up after them.

There’s this awkward feeling that happens when you’re cleaning up someones trash or mopping their floor while they’re still in the room. There’s this sense of guilt from them and this sense of uncertainty on your part. No one knows whether or not they should talk to one another. And so you just remained completely closed off, awkwardly asking them to get up so you can vacuum under their desk and they respond with a polite apology and then flee to the other side of the room. There’s a fear of acknowledging position of power.

And it raises questions of how we are supposed to handle things like this. The functioning of society seems to be based upon the ranking of people, either by wage or quality of work or permanence. But we behave in a way which tries to deny these facts and somehow seems to exacerbate them, as it did in my job last summer. I never felt more like a servant than when I was mopping around a conversation. But then in this situation, the denial is comforting and makes things go easier. Gaining a sense of security in my position in the house was a big turning point for me. Hearing affirmation that they were not planning on sending me back anytime soon, that they thought I was capable of doing this job, was what finally allowed me to start doing it.

I can’t really think of anyway to conclude this post, as I don’t really know what I’m thinking myself. Any of you got anything?

Random Story

That is what is going on in the room next to me. Isn’t it adorable?

We had been having a “discussion” about whether or not Kilian was going to allow me to change him, as he had recently pooped. Yes, it actually needs to be a discussion, because Kilian is freakishly strong for a two-year-old and if he is not convinced that his diaper needs changing, my pathetic attempts just end poorly.

Kilian was adamant that he did not want to be changed, no matter what I offered as a reward (Kilian, you can finish listening to that really annoying CD about a crawling ladybug! Kilian, you can have some cashews! Kilian, for the love of god, you smell like shit, let me change you! – Okay, so maybe I didn’t actually say the last one.) When asked why he did not want to be changed, I was promptly told that he was angry. When asked why he was angry, I was given the simple response that he was angry because he was angry. When told that he was smelly and asked if he wanted to continue smelling and having poop in his diaper, he replied with a confident,albeit surprising, yes. There was simply no way out of this one.

My final attempt at coercion was that I simply do not play with stinky kids, and since he was choosing to continue stinking, he had to leave the kitchen and go somewhere else. I was hoping he would go upstairs to try play with Hannah, who would also promptly tell him he couldn’t play with her because he stank. After that, he normally comes and asks to be changed.

However, he decided to go into the living room. I waited a couple minutes for him to get bored and come ask to be changed. Instead, it just got really quiet and I walked around the corner to find him curled up on the armchair asleep.

I added the blanket though. Just because he still smells doesn’t mean he should be cold.

New photos on the flickr, from the first real snowfall of the year, Berlin, and a couple from my attempt at cooking Thanksgiving dinner last Saturday. The results from the dinner were about 50/50: The chicken (no turkey, because I really did not want to saddle them with that many leftovers) and the sweet potatoes came out amazing, while the gravy and stuffing were about mediocre. Of course, this was my first time making everything except the turkey/chicken, and the stuffing was from scratch, so i feel like it came out pretty well, all things considered.

And by the end of it, Anna and I had split an entire bottle of wine between the two of us, which always adds to a festive spirit.

Bis gleich!

– Amanda

An Explanation

Hey all,

Sorry there’s been this huge break. I’ve been hitting what I think could be thought of as the puberty stage of my time here, where things are all awkward and painful and full of acne, but ultimately comes out okay if you can just get through it. To overextend the metaphor, I’d say I’m hitting around 16 or 17 years old now, so we’re just about through the woods.

Which is also a way to explain why I haven’t been posting. Unsurprisingly, moving in with a family of strangers as a live in employee is not exactly the easiest transition one can go through, with a lot of frustration coming from adapting to communicating and living with these people that you don’t know or really care about yet. When I started this blog, I promised myself that I wouldn’t dedicate time to bitching about my family -either the parents or the children – in this forum, mostly because, not gonna lie, I worried they would find it.

And had I a normal job, bitching would be totally on the line. It would probably be a daily feature. But the thing is, I live with these people. I know way too much about my bosses and I worry that that in my vitriol I would divulge things to the world at large that really have no place in public. And these are not bad people – on the contrary, I consider myself ridiculously lucky, having gossiped with other au pairs about our families – it’s just that we’re new to each other and need to learn how to live together. However, this does not mean that I haven’t shared my vitriol in more private settings, just that I’m not going to do it here.

And so I haven’t been posting. Because if I did, it would just turn to spite and then to violations of privacy and trust. At the moment, I’m at the end of what has probably been my best week here, but just having hit on a Thing that needs Discussion. But things are starting to fall in place and feel the way they should. Anna and I had a pretty significant talk last week, which clarified the role that she would like me to play in the family and thankfully it lined up with what I had hoped. It did not however, line up with what I had been reading from cues, which is why we were having trouble. But after The Talk, I’m actually starting to feel like part of the family now. Now that I know what I can and should do, things are going much more smoothly. The homesickness has magically started to evaporate and I’m starting to feel more at home, which is a big relief. At the same time, I think I’ve pretty much decided that after this year, I am going back to the States again, at least for a while. I miss a lot about home and it will be nice to be able to focus on this year without having to worry about finding a way to legally stay here the next. And I mean, I know people do the illegal thing? But I don’t think I’m up for that.

Pictures from my trip to Vienna a few weeks ago are posted on my flickr and I will be posting pictures from Berlin in a few days. Also coming will be descriptions of the trips as, as usual, the pictures by themselves don’t really say much.

Bis dann!

- Amanda

Homesickness, and the stages thereof.

Homesickness is a funny thing.  We all have an inherent understanding of what it is.  No one has ever needed to have homesickness explained to them.  Even when we’re younger and someone has to tell us that it’s normal to be homesick, a definition is never really given. And the thing is, at the ripe old age of 22, I am homesick for the first time in my life and it’s really throwing me off.

And my lack of experience is not for lack of chances to experience it.  I did all the things you’re supposed to do as a kid to get used to homesickness and learn how to deal with it.  Girl Scout camp, 4H camp, Bible camp, Young Life camp.  I’m sure maybe the first time I was scared of the dark, but that’s as close as I got to real emotional trauma.

I spent two weeks in Nepal with my Dad when I was 14.  Not so much with the missing things.  But then, I was in Nepal and I had my Dad with me, which is a pretty strong connection to home.  Went to a three-week long camp in Pennsylvania the same year.  Called home once, only because I received an e-mail from my parents threatening consequences if I didn’t.  The thought of home just never crossed my mind at the time.  Returned the next year and managed to call home more often, only out of conscious effort.

Went to college a twelve hour drive from home, not having a friend within an eight hour radius.  Felt… something.  Loneliness was the term I used to describe it then, and still think it’s most appropriate.  Was happy where I was, didn’t really want to go back, just needed something… familiar.  Spent summers either working as a camp counselor or traveling on a bus, essentially pushing a temporary reset button on my life for two to three month segments at a time.  Missed people, but nothing really worth mentioning or even writing in my diary.

But now, what I’ve got is enough that I’m even mentioning it in public.  And believe me, this is not like me.  But I know some of the people who read this have done a bit of traveling/reset button pushing themselves and I’m looking for thoughts.

What’s funny is that it’s so hit and miss.  When I first got here, I assumed it would be just like every other time I’ve picked up and moved somewhere.  The leaving part sucked, but once I got wherever I was going, I was just there.  Why would I dwell on something that just wasn’t a part of my current life?  It just didn’t make sense to me.  And so I came here, and I started trying to live here.  I spoke more and more German; I ate bread with Mandelmuss; I put my family’s organic Mandelmuss down on my list things I was probably going to miss; I vowed to get Anna to teach me how to make jam before I leave; I started planning trips; I started finding ways to meet people and so on and so on.  There was a bit more exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed than normal, but let’s remember that I had just moved to a country where I spoke the native language at, on my best days, an intermediate level.  And I was actually occasionally crying, which was also weird for me, but I put it down to the exhaustion.

And then the past few weeks, it just hit me.  Suddenly, I was sitting around just thinking about my friends in other places and feeling that actual physical ache, where the want is so strong that you go psychosomatic for a few minutes. I wasn’t crying.  Just longing to not be here.  To not be here in this place that was absolutely amazing and beautiful and to not be here with these kids that I love and to just book a plane ticket and come home (home being, at this point, a strange amalgamation of about four or five distinct locations).  This is the sort of thing I’d been dreaming of doing for years and now that I had it, I had this weird thing, that made me not want it and I’ve never had to deal with that before.   I knew all the cures and tricks (spending two summers coaching children through homesickness will ingrain these things) and was trying to stay busy, focusing on writing, e-mailing – but not calling, because for some strange reason, that often increases homesickness – and planning future trips, but it just wasn’t shaking.  The only thing I enjoyed thinking of was leaving.

I woke up last Wednesday morning in an absolutely foul mood for no good reason at all, except that I had fallen asleep wanting to be Not Here and I woke up in much the same state and remained so throughout the day.  Add this to the fact that the next day was the first day of my German course and I was nervous because A) when I registered, the school hadn’t been able to guarantee that I would actually have a spot and B) the woman helping me had actually mentioned that my placement score was on the low end for my given course and that maybe I should register for the course below it.  For a couple of reasons, I stuck with the higher level course (assuming there was room for me), but I was still far from comfortable with the idea.

Then the next morning I woke up early and rushed through my morning routine to get to the bus stop at what my watch said was two minutes too late to catch my bus and what my cell phone said was two minutes early.  I got on the bus and stared out the window, giving myself heartburn worrying that I wouldn’t recognize my stop (I knew the neighborhood I was going to, but had never taken this bus before).

And then I got off at the right stop and arrived in plenty of time (Suprised?  I was too.)  There were three other girls there and after a few minutes, we were shown into the classroom.  I sat down at the table and started classroom-style small talk with the people sitting next to me.  And the teacher walked in and rearranged the tables because we needed more room, as always seems to happen.  And there were visual aids on the walls, reminding me what the word for “toes” was.  And we went through a test as a class and had to give each other stupid simple interviews using questions from a worksheet, which included the hilariously morbid and awkward question, “How do you want to die?” and so, of course, everyone in the class used it in an attempt to jive up what would otherwise be a boring list of one word answers.

And the class ended.  And for the first time in weeks, I was actually glad to be here.  Was actually glad to be struggling to understand a person speaking German in a very thick South Korean accent.  To be meeting these people from so many different places.  It was an injection of familiar, of something I’ve actually done before, a formula so regular and predictable that it didn’t matter what the variables were.

And so for the past few days, I’ve been all right.  I’m still not sure whether or not I’m going to stay for a second year and I still have to remind myself every now and then that this is something that I do want, but it hasn’t been a plague.  It’s just been moments.  And then I drink some tea and color with Kilian or play “Rabbits Running Away from a Jaguar” with Hannah or re-teach Lena my favorite method of making string bracelets and then I’m fine for awhile.  I still can’t stop thinking about next year and coming home, but it’s in a way that doesn’t depress me as much.

But then, this conflicts heavily with the fact that I just saw “Sicko” and have now sworn I’m never to be at the mercy of the American health care system, so I’m not sure how I’m gonna work that one out.

But here are my questions for people who’ve done this (meaning, actually been homesick) before:

How long would you say your “homesick period” lasted?  How do you draw the line between being homesick and needing to go home?  Those of you who have stayed or returned to someplace you would call “Not Home,” why?  And what led you to feeling like that was the right decision?

Oktoberfest: Part 3

The Carnage

1.  My T-Shirt

2.  My leg

3.  My Empty Empty Wallet

Not pictured:

Dignity

Brain Cells

Shoes

Oktoberfest: Part 2

Second Day (Sunday Sept 30)

So, the first day, I ended up leaving around 5:30 in the evening because I didn’t trust my normally faulty sense of direction to get me back to the train station when I’d had a bit to drink.  So, I opted to leave with Chris, who had a six hour train ride in front of him, so obviously needed to leave a little earlier than your average bear.

I was left with a sense of bereavement, really, that, while I had had a good time, I had yet to experience a full day at the ‘Fest, particularly to see the potential chaos that was promised after dark.

So, I made plans to meet up with some Couchsurfers on Sunday and to stay with one of them in the city.  Originally, I was supposed to meet up with them at the Munich Hauptbanhof at 10, but then I missed my train from Salzburg by one frustrating minute and so arrived too late to catch them.  They would however, be meeting up again around 4, so I wasn’t too worried and decided to follow the aforementioned stream of lederhosen to the ‘Fest and take some time to actually look around the grounds.

Unfortunately, my short attention span kicked in about twenty minutes into this exercise and I was left with a couple more hours to waste before I would have anyone to meet up with.

Obviously, the solution was to take advantage of the breakdown of social norms when drinking and find my own friends.  Step one was picking the tent.  The Hippodrome was pretty awesome, but I was hoping to try somewhere new, and so I walked along the tents, trying to guess which one would lend itself to the best “Oktoberfest experience,”

Now, my host family spent a few years living in Munich and own this informal guide to the nightlife in the city called “Groovy Munich,” which is based entirely on the personal experience of the two writers.  The last tenth of this book is a guide to the ‘Fest and I had the section read a few weeks ago.  I stumbled upon the Hofbräu tent and this particular tidbit came flowing back to me:

“I climbed up on a balcony [of the Hofbräu tent], looked down at the scene before me and thought, “My God, that cannot be! I had heard so many things about Oktoberfest, but this was worse.  It was like animals in a zoo.  But these animals were not singing ‘House of the Rising Sun’; they were drinking, throwing beer at each other, falling off tables, throwing up, kissing, and almost having sex. … The worst of humanity congregates here and has a really great time, by the looks of it.”
And with that, I knew I had found my new home.

After couple trips through to pick out who my new friends were going to be, I finally picked out a boisterous, English speaking table, about 50/50 male to female, with some room at the end of their table.  The best part?

They were blue.

It turned out they were a group of New Zealanders, who had picked up a group of American students, and the paint had just grown from there.  They called themselves the Smurfs on Tour and of course were all adamant All Blacks fans.  I told them my (slightly fabricated) tale of woe of knowing I had friends there, but not being able to find them.  One drinking game later and I was fully adopted, blue paint and all.

I think one of my favorite parts of this weekend was the large Italian male contingent, that seemingly would hit on anything, and oh man, did I get some quality lines fed to me. The pinnacle came as I was leaving the bathroom, this guy stops me and tells me that I am “the most beautiful Smurf he had ever seen.”  The best part is that he said it in three languages, before stumbling on one I could follow.  Where do you learn that kind of shit?

Eventually, it hit 3:30, the time when I was supposed to leave to go meet up with the couchsurfers.  And of course, 4:00 came and went and I hadn’t set foot outside the tent except to go buy some food.  And then more and more people kept coming and joining.  How could I be expected to leave?

The night ended with me pretending to be a part of the Kiwi’s tour group and sharing a tent with them.  The blue paint, of course, made me blend in so well that I even got food the next morning!  Almost made up for how fucking cold it was.

Oktoberfest: Part 1

So, the long awaited Oktoberfest update was delayed because – dun dun na na na – I went back! As I’m writing this, it’s the night after I got back from my second day at the festival. This might actually be posted significantly later, because I’m going to wait until I can get to an internet cafe to post this, because I want to use photos and I don’t want to triple my host families bandwidth usage like I did last month (Whoops).

ETA: Sorry these posts are so late. I’m not really content with how they’ve come out, but I’m just gonna post ‘em and move on. As always, there are more pictures at the flickr account linked on the sidebar.

The First Day (Monday, Sept 24)

The first day, I met up with this one guy named Chris:

Who is an American expat in living in Vienna. He wonderfully invited me along to meet up with a group of other Americans that travel to the ‘Fest every year. (And can be found at havebeerwilltravel.com. Seriously.)

Most of our time was spend in the Hippodrome tent:

which was apparently very exciting for me to try and photograph, because I seriously have about 15 photos of just the inside of the tent. And that’s after I cleaned out the ones that were just blurry beyond recognition. We were sitting right next to the band, which was surprisingly way more awesome than annoying.

Points of Excitement:
1. The documentary crew:

There was a documentary crew filming something about beer. I didn’t really get the details, but I do know that I gave them my e-mail and HEY GUYS I MIGHT BE IN A PASSING SHOT OF A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT BEER. You will be updated if I hear that it’s actually going to be broadcast.

2. At some point in time, this happened:

Which, if you can’t tell, is the accordion player being hung upside down on a board. He then, of course, played a song, while upside down.

3. I almost got away with stealing this hat!

Which actually belonged to the drummer:

Who threw it and it landed on my head! I felt the the rules of serendipity demanded that this meant the hat was now mine, but apparently the drummer disagreed, because he dove over the barrier and stole it back when I went to the bathroom.

Bastard.

My Life: The Greatest Hits Version

So, Oktoberfest posts are mostly written. Now we’re just waiting on me to get my ass to an internet cafe to upload photos to go with them. Because I don’t want my family to pay triple what they normally do for internet, unlike last month. Go me!

So, in the meanwhile, here’s the backstory of how I got here:

I was born in North Dakota – quite literally Middle of Nowhere, USA. I spent my childhood approximitely two hours away from the geographical center of North America. It was flat, with extremely bipolar weather conditions, decorated by large fiberglass sculptures, and a place that I’m glad to come from, but don’t think I’ll be moving back to again.

Oldest of two kids, with my grandparents living in the same town. Spent less time than I should have at the family farm. Spent my time doing theater, speech, debate, and forcing my friends to join me in these activites (HI HAMILTON). Traveled with my family to Nepal, Sweden, and Norway.

Went to college in Iowa. Still Middle of Nowhere, but a little further south with a few more hills. Went to a wonderfully quirky school with plans to study abroad in India. Decided to take German on a whim with my roomate sophomore year (HI KATE), because I thought it sounded awesome. Studied Psychology and was angered that I couldn’t work Linguistics into my schedule. Had a mid-college crisis after sophomore year and decided to sacrifice semester abroad to study theater more seriously. Wanted to continue with German, but it got squeezed out by Other Priorities. Spent summer after junior year traveling across Canada on a bus with a friend I met at Nerd Camp in 8th grade (HI EMU).

Plan for post-graduation was to move to Chicago and try my hand at professional acting and possibly stand-up. Realized that this would condemn me to years of day to day drudgery and would remove all chance of really traveling like I wanted to do for a Long Long Time. Began searching for ways to get abroad that didn’t have deadlines that had passed months ago.  Had a dream (literally) where I was living abroad with a family and taking care of their kids.  Realized that this was actually possible and that two summers of working as a camp counselor and a year of running a small church daycare probably left me well prepared to do so.

Decided to abadon theater plan a few weeks before graduation, lined up au pair job through a website, and spent the last summer working as a janitor at home in order to save up money so that I can travel during my time off. Plan to return to the States at some point (probably after two years abroad) and either live in Chicago or Seattle and take up theater again.

Any Questions?

Fun Small Things

– Cream is called “Schlagobers” in German. Best name ever.

- One of the best parts about the kids not speaking English is the ability to discuss them with their parents right in front of their face.

The other is the fact that I don’t have to censor my music around them.

- Yesterday I decided to go for a bike ride along the Salzach. Ended up biking into Salzburg. I was resting in this park and suddenly heard part of “Status Quo” from High School Musical being blasted. Thought for an exhilarating minute that it was possibly a touring company of HSM. Spent the next five minutes biking around to find the source, only to discover that it was coming from the sports stadium and that some team was using it as warm-up music.

- The mid-fourties female cashier at the grocery store. She had red-frosted hair, blue mascara, and a name tag reading, “Frau Nockers.”

- I’m in an internet cafe in Munich. I’m going to the ‘Fest again. I’m not sure how to get there from here, but I plan to follow the stream of Lederhosen.

- I really want a dirndl.