My first lessons

I had some funny experiences not just at the gas station but in a grocery store, too.

Especially when I was looking for washing powder, just to discover after one hour or so that there are just fluids.

I had to get to used the sizes of the products. I never saw a 1 gallon milk bottle (3.8 liter!!) before. Packages of almost everything are huge. Even the Pillsbury rolls, there is nothing under 8 rolls.

Needless to say we have just a quarter or half of the sizes in Germany. Now when we are visiting our family and go sometime to a grocery store we just laugh. We make jokes about the miniature food. And of course we are not used to it any more. Did I mention that once I was even looking desperately how to open the mail box at the post office. Even those open in a opposite direction than in Germany.

Sometimes I feel like a child who is learning everything for the first time. It is not always pleasant . I have to remind myself that I am an educated woman, even when my son reminds me every day how much I have to learn compared to his English.

The big challange

Simple things like getting the gas at the gas station or grocery shopping can be a real adventure. First time when I drove my car to a gas station it developed to a small disaster. I was standing there and wondering why there is no gas coming out. I thought the gas pump must be broken. I tried the next one: nothing. After a while a man who was watching me (and probably smiling) explained me that I have swipe the card first or go inside and pay cash before I get any gas.

This was not very logical to me: to pay for something before you get it. But than I remembered our experience with the telephone where we had to pay before we made a single call, too. I do not have to mention that we handle those things a little different in Europe…

Next time I drove to a different gas station, feeling safe and confident, now, since I know how the things are working. This time I swiped my card proudly and waited for the gas to come. Nothing. I got mad, the machine had my credit number and was obviously broken. I went inside and reported that there is nothing working. The man looked at me concerned and came outside. Then he just lifted up the lever and looked at me even more concerned. The gas was filling up and I was devastated. Which gas station should I go to now, where it is not so embarrassing…

In this point New Jersey is very convenient this way. Here you do not need to do it by yourself. You just say: “Fill up, please. Regular”. I love this!

Lonely?

(CT, Summer 2006)

But the biggest surprise was the visit of the priest of our parish (it was a catholic school). To be honest I never had a priest in my house before. He even brought somebody who speaks German because he worried that I would not understand him. And he invited us to a 4th of July party at his house. (He gave the small party just for us! He thought we must feel lonely...)He also invited some people from the parish who speak German. We had a wonderful time and we met our closest friends there. Father M. is one of them. We never expected how the people would welcome us.It was absolutely overwhelming.

After few weeks we had friends in our house and Jakob had playmates.

Did I mention that Jakobs Kindergarten teacher is my American “sister” now? She told me where I have to get books for Jakob, where I have to sign up for soccer and where we should go in case we need a good doctor.

Our start in Milford could not be better. I did not feel lonely at any time. And I always had/have people around me who introduce me to the real American way of life. There was and is still so much to learn!

The most essential thing

At the beginning we had just one car. Can you imagine?! We were so naive to think we could survive in the USA with one car?! (We did in Germany for the last 12 years.) When Jakob and I needed the car we dropped off my husband at work early in the morning and picked him up in the evening. After four (exhausting) months we got a second car. What a surprise?!

Terrified...

(CT, Summer 2006)

After three weeks living in Connecticut a mother of Jakobs classmates called and asked if she could pick me up and show us the town. We could go to the duck pond , to the beach and have lunch or ice cream. My English was very poor at this time so it took Dorothy long to explain to me what a duck pond was. She made duck noises.

Talking on the phone was a very difficult experience for the first months. It makes a big difference if you are standing in front of somebody and talking or when you just hear the words. Your hands, eyes and the whole body are big helpers when you can not find the right word. In the first several weeks I was terrified when our phone was ringing. Especially in the beginning I did not know how many commercial calls we would get. I always thought it was something important. I think I even made one appointment for a chiropractor for me and Jakob, without really knowing. I felt horrible, helpless like my grandmother…

Anyway, Dorothy and Claire, her daughter, picked us up. Jakob and Clare had fun together, even without talking. Dorothy and I found our way too. Somehow...

Safety for our kid?

(CT, June 2006)

The school start would be in September, our son would go to Kindergarten at a private, very small and family oriented school. My husband and I never planed to sign up for a private school, but I was too scared at the beginning. All what I knew about the USA is what I read in the newspaper or saw on tv. There was always so much crime, big schools, drugs…I did not know what to expect from the area where we will live (we spent just five days house hunting!!).

As all parents we wanted to know our child to be safe (funny when I write it: does something like this exist??).

Soon, many school parents tried to include us in different kind of activities. This is a advantage of a small school. Everybody knows everybody and the people are more open and very helpful. Jakob was invited to birthday parties before he even met the kids. I do not know how they communicated but it was not important for them, obviously. They just played. Jakob was happy.

Adaption

I often think back to the time when we lived in Heidelberg, a middle century town with a beautiful castle. I would spend the whole day with our son in the stroller walking (!), shopping, visiting playgrounds and cafés. I had my backpack and the stroller (where all groceries fit) and I had my feet (!). That is the way you do it in Europe. Every city, town, village has a downtown where you shop, dine… without a car. We have some shopping malls too, but even those are mostly in the middle of the town. At the beginning we were laughing when we saw that a woman at the shopping mall took her car because the next store was just 50 meters away. Today, we do of course exactly the same…You just adapt.

Missing friends?

(CT, Summer 2006)

I think this was the time when our son started to hate shopping. But this was the only opportunity for him to have contact with other kids. And he tried. Whenever he saw a boy near his age he started to show him a toy or would play a little hide and seek. What ever worked without words. It is amazing, but kids find always a way of communicating. Of course, we visited the playground at the shopping mall in our town as often as possible. Later it was the beach. I was worrying that he missed his friends and the play dates, but I think that our new life was exciting for him too, and he was occupied with getting to know everything.

The first big shopping

(CT, June 2006)

As with everything else we had also to learn how to shop in the USA. That is something what you learn easily… Of course we did not know any furniture store and did not know where to go. But here came the rescue! One of my husbands colleagues told us, there is an Ikea Store, only a few miles away. Yes!! That was just perfect for us. To be honest, in Germany we made it to Ikea maybe once, even though around every corner there`s an Ikea store. But, my husband who loves beautiful and contemporary furniture never liked to shop there. But the irony of our life change is that since we came to the USA we have been to Ikea at least about 10 times! We know already every aisle there. Always when we think about it we have a lot of fun, laughing about ourselves… The truth is that this is the only store we knew that had a kind of European style and we did not feel lost there. Everything was more familiar. At our first shopping tour we got: a table with stools, beds for our son and us. (We learned for the first time about Queen and King size. Why do the Americans have a different measurement system for everything?) Bedcovers, chairs, many lamps, curtains, stuff for the kitchen, and How do you buy everything you need in one day to spend a few weeks in a new house? I do not know, but we did. And, most of this stuff fitted even in our huge car. We spend the whole Sunday there. Funny, we were wondering in the morning if the furniture stores are open on Sunday. We are (were?) still Europeans, at least in thinking. You know, the exciting part about Ikea starts when you get home, because then you have to put everything together… This was an experience for me. Before, I never thought I could put a chair or a lamp together. But I did. And it was even fun. Especially since there was not so much to do in the evening with no tv and radio. We would shop for these next!

However, the first night in our new house arrived. Surprise! We slept very well, because we were so exhausted, and still had some jet lag. It was very interesting to live in a half empty house - and I enjoyed it! Sometimes I wish we did not have so much stuff…

Prejudice

It is an old prejudice in Europe, which drives me always crazy, that the Americans are superficial. “Everybody welcomes you, says hello, is smiling but nobody really cares. You do not get closer, you do not make real close friends”. Bullshit! I do no expect any neighbour or any women at the counter to be my friend, only because she does some small talk and is polite (!). It would fit very well many waitresses or even strangers in Germany to be more polite! And by the way: we made friends here, very close and dear friends. And I am learning still every day from them about the American way of life.

A big country

(CT, June 2006)

We needed some furniture for the first weeks in our house, which was bigger than our old house in Germany. Much bigger. Like I said, in the USA are not only the cars bigger. We have much smaller houses because the properties are compared to the USA tiny. A loan with a half acre is for the Europeans huge. There is not a lot of privacy. And of course the houses do not have three full bathrooms but only one. Very convenient when you have guests… In the USA you have so much space!! Germany has the size of Texas, but 80 Millions citizens! No wonder that everybody who comes from Germany says that the Americans are so relaxed and take it easy. The people are more far away from each other, so they can not annoy each other so much… And they are so polite. Our Guest are always so impressed that everybody is asking them “How are you?”, even strangers. After a while we understood that nobody (except your friends) expect you really to say how are you feeling. It is more like “Good Morning” or “Hello” but it sounds much more friendly. I made the same mistake in the first week when I heard “You are welcome” after the usual “Thank you” . I thought, “Oh man , the people are so friendly here, they all say to you “welcome”. Finally I got it: it is only the response to my thanks.

What I learned on Mothers Day

We arrived in Newark on Saturday, May 13th 2006. When the driver brought our rental car I had to look twice. First I thought a bus is coming. Olaf started to laugh: “Welcome in the USA! Here is everything big, get used to it”. I did, very fast. After more than three years I am still fascinated to watch the mothers bringing their kids to school, soccer or pool in their big SUV. But I have to admit: I love my Jeep and I do not like to drive in Olafs small VW. It is so “comfortable and convenient”- two words, which describe American way of life very well. As I said, you get used to it faster than you think. Hard to imagine but we even found our way out from New York without a GPS. I knew that on Sunday would be “Mothers Day” in Europe, so I left small gifts for our moms at their homes. “I do not think that they have Mothers Day here too, but we take you out for a nice dinner tomorrow”, said my husband. After we drove for a while I knew that the Americans have Mothers Day , I saw the big signs at the flower shops. On the next morning the waiter in our hotel welcome us for breakfast with “Happy Mothers Day”. I thought that was very kind of him, a special treat for the guest. In Germany nobody says to you “Happy Mothers Day”, except your children, it is not a big deal. I had to learn three things on this day. First : Americans say “Happy Mothers Day” in the same way they say “Happy 4th of July ”, “Happy Halloween”, “Happy Thanksgiving”. It just replaces “How are you?” on this special day. Second: Everything in the USA is a big deal (“think big!”). Especially when it is connected to the kids. Just think about all the kinds of graduations and proms (this will be a special chapter). Third: Never go out for dinner on Mothers Day (or any weekend) without a reservation. We came to “Outback”, a restaurant near our hotel and saw a long, long line of people waiting in the front. Imagine, they all were waiting to be called up to their tables, even they had reservations! About something like this the restaurant owner in Germany can only dream…We tried some other restaurants, too. How naive we were… Of course we did not have a dinner that night, at least not in a restaurant. We were so exhausted because of the jet lag anyway, so we just went back to our hotel and ordered pizza. As the pizza arrived we were deeply asleep. “Happy Mothers Day!”

Bye,bye Germany

(Germany, USA, May 2006) After coming back we had just four weeks left before moving to the USA. A moving company came to pack our furniture; they did a terrific job (uninspected). It was not easy because a part of our household had to stay in Germany, for example lamps, all electronics and carpets. We also left all our books, what I truly regret. But we wanted to be back in two years…As you can imagine we were very busy. Additionally we had to take care of our house project. We were picking our new kitchen, tile, wood floors and different things for the bathroom. Pretty strange, isn`t it? Here we just found a house in the USA, on the other hand we were working on our new “house-to-be” in Germany, meanwhile we were packing everything in the house where we were still living…I don`t know what we were thinking! Probably nothing, otherwise we never could finish this. The Day after everything was done, our son said “Bye” to his kindergarten friends, of course with a lot of tears, and came to an empty house. I`ll never forget his face, covered with tears, so unhappy…At that moment I really doubted that we were doing the right thing. We visited during the last weeks our friends, family, neighbours to say “Good-Bye”. It wasn’t so hard because everything still seemed so unreal-until the moment we were standing in an empty house. I felt so sorry for our son but I had to learn that kids forget very fast. In the next morning he was already so excited about flying in an airplane that he didn’t care about our old house anymore. Our family brought us to the airport. They were standing there and waving. We waved back but our thoughts were already far away. As always when you excited about something new, like a new beginning in a foreign country. We were planning what we will do after landing. Where will we pick up our rental car? How we will find our way to Connecticut? How long we will have to stay in the hotel? From the airplane window we saw the coast, many lakes and woods. And then we saw New York! “Oh, my God! We are really in America!” I was just hoping that I understand this time what the man at the emigration asks me (last time he got very unfriendly because I didn’t answer his question immediately). Meanwhile the airplane landed…

The house hunting

(Connecticut, April 2006) We had to move to the USA already in May. There was not much time left for house hunting. So we flew to NYC before Eastern and stayed for six days in Connecticut. During this time, we had to find a new home. Of course, we were thinking that it would be only for two years… The most difficult thing for me was to find the right school for our son. I`ve never been in the USA before so I had no idea what to expect here. We visited 25 houses in only four days. Can you imagine?! It was absolutely my first day here and I went house hunting! I was very afraid. I didn`t know the area, the neighborhood and if I can trust the realtor. You wouldn`t believe it but the last house we saw, was “our” house. I think we decided it the moment when we saw the ocean and the beach. I enjoyed it very much in the two following years. We never regreted our decision. But I didn`t want to sign up before we found a nice school. After visiting a small private school I knew our son would be “safe” here. Safety was my biggest worry. I knew USA only from the movies and there was always a lot of crime… Everything seemed so strange to me: the way the houses were built, all the wires above the ground, the shopping malls and many other things. Of course, there was one big issue: I did understand only a part of what the people were saying. And I knew our son would not understand anything for a while. But the decision was made, and I tried to look forward to our “biggest adventure”. The hardest part would be to say good bye to our family and friends and to prepare everything for the move. How our son will take it?! These were my thoughts on the flight back to Germany.

The decision

(Germany, February 2006) Four months before moving to Connecticut we signed up for building a new construction house in Germany. My husband said about his future house “Here they will carry me away only with my feet first” Yeah! It sounded kind of sad to me, so final. I could picture my whole life already and I didn`t like the idea at all. You see, at this time we didn`t have any clue that we would end up in the USA. The work on our “Dream-House” didn`t even start, but we were already planning how to put the furniture in. Just the day after we ordered the new kitchen for our future house, my husband got home from work and said that he has an important question for me. We were already married so this couldn`t be it. “Do you want to go to the USA and live there for about two years?” At first I was shocked. What about our house? But in the next second I answered ”Of course! ”We both knew that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and if we don`t do it now, we never will. I was always interested in living in the USA, though I have never been here before (or maybe because). So we had a nice plan for our future: we stay for two years in the USA and when our house is built we will rent it until we move back to Germany. As always life has his own plans. As you can imagine, it never happened. We fell in love with this country and enjoyed living here so much that we decided to stay when my husbands company asked us if we wanted to move back or go to New Jersey (his company moved there). You know the answer. Our house in Germany was finished six months after moving to the USA. We never rented it, we just sold it. A part of our furniture, books (unfortunately), and other stuff is still stored in Germany. Our “Dream-House” is now in New Jersey and we are at home here now.

Living in the USA

How it all started If somebody had told me 4 years ago that I would live in a house with black bears in the backyard, drive a Jeep and go to NY Knicks games on Sunday I would laugh. If somebody had told me that my 9 year old son will be a proud member of American Cub Scouts and sing the national anthem with his right hand on the heart I would never believe him. If somebody had told me that we leave our whole family and our friends back in Germany and think about staying permanently in the USA I would think he lost his mind. But here I am: living in New Jersey! And I do not have just bears in my backyard, believe me. So many animals as here I did not see in any of the National Parks I visited. I don`t have to mention that I (coming from a city in Germany and knowing bears just from the Zoo) was pretty shocked and terrified when I saw mama bear and two cups crossing our backyard. I could not believe that this happens just 40 miles away from NYC. By the way, when you live in the woods of New Jersey you are more then thankful that NYC is not far: civilisation! But I love this life. We all do. We all (my husband and our son) agree that moving to the USA was one of our best decisions. Living in a foreign country is always a great experience. You learn and discover every day something new, especially in the beginning. Simple things like grocery shopping or getting gas at the gas station can be a big challenge. Most experiences are funny and you learn to laugh about yourself. If you are lucky (like me!)you find good and dear friends who explain you the American way of life, excuse all the mistakes you do, not just in the language. Who patiently explain to you the same things over and over again. And who are even curious to hear about your life in Europe. Most of the time you learn so much just watching them. Moving to the USA is for sure not so difficult like moving for example to China. But still, like I said there are so many things which are completely different, unusual. I would for sure really appreciate it if somebody in Germany would give me a Guide for the USA for all the small things in our life. It would have done my life here much easier, probably. But maybe I would miss a lot, too. So I decided to write for all the Europeans who want to be prepared for living in the USA. But also for all Americans who want to know something about their own country what they never really saw before. And for all of you who want to learn something about “old Europe” or just have some fun reading this. And before I start, please excuse all my mistakes. My English is still not good enough for this small experiment here. Even my son reminds me every day how much I have to learn compared to his English. But as I know from all Hollywood movies: here is everything possible. So, how did it all started- our big American experience…