Visitors from far away

My parents are coming for a visit this week - if the volcano keeps quiet. For them it is a big trip and they do not need that additional excitement. Me neither.

They visited us already before but coming to America is always something very special. My father said last time that he never imagined he would travel to the USA, now at his age (he is just 65…). He doesn`t speak any English so it is a little bit challenging. I give my mom a lot of credit, she started an English class before her first trip here and has continued it, so far. She has been here a few times before and she always wants Jakob to be her teacher. Something what he definitely enjoys. It gives him a lot of satisfaction to see his grandma struggling with words he spells so easily. (Of course he has the same fun with his parents…).

My parents love our house (probably because it is “our” house) and they enjoy the great outdoors here. They visit New York and this time they want to go to Washington (which I absolutely recommend!). But most of all they just want to be with us, something they have been missing for four years now. This is a real treat and most exciting, for all of us.

Ps. And lets us also hope that the volcano doesn`t delay their flight back to Germany… just joking!

"Where ever I lay my head that`s my home"(Paul Young)

We visited our friends in Connecticut over Easter. And “our” old house.

We wanted to see how it looks now. It was kind of strange when we passed by. I was sad seeing the ocean (which I still miss) but I had mixed feelings looking at our old house. The thing was: it was actually not ours anymore. It did not feel like ours. Just two years ago, we moved and I already forgot how it was living there…(By the way: the family who lives there did a nice job.) After driving along the beach my husband said. “Let`s go home”.

Something similar always happens when we visit our family in Germany. We spent most of our life there but after living for 4 years in the USA it does not feel like our home anymore. When the airplane lands in Newark everything looks very familiar. Yes, we are home again.

I can only explain it with the fact that we humans have the wonderful ability to adapt. Very fast. We always have this kind of melancholic feeling when we visit places where we lived before, but home is (at least for me) where I, my husband and our son live right now. Here. By the way, talking about homes. My favourite show, especially when I am tired and unable to think, is “House Hunters”(HGTV). It still amazes me to see some of these huge mansions and young couples coming in, saying that the kitchen feels too small. Are you kidding me?! A house with more than 4000sq feet and a kitchen as big a living room in other countries?!

And the funniest thing (or in my opinion the saddest) is that some of those couples are in their late twenties. The last one, I saw, was looking for their first home, no kids, so far.

Did the people learn anything at all from the financial crisis and the collapse of the house market?? Obviously not, that´s why it is so much fun to watch this show…

Spring in suburbia

“You don`t own the house, the house owns you!” Who ever said this must have lived in (New Jersey?) suburbia. We experience the joy of having a house especially when the garden season starts. This means: now. The weekends do not belong to us anymore, our back and front yard take them. At least in the afternoon. In the morning we are with Jakob at his soccer games…This is one side of living in suburbia. You do not go to the city, you cut the grass when the weather is good. In the beginning we wanted to keep it simple: no plants, just the lawn. But the house looked a little naked, so we put a few plantings in the front. Meanwhile the deer ate some of them so we replaced them with other, more resistant, we hoped. It is nice to look at a few flowers while lying in the deckchair…Ha, ha ! Who has time to sit in the deckchair when there is so much work waiting?! And because we like all kinds of grass we put some of them along the house. A few flowers here, a few plantings there. And so on. Our “simply grass” project developed after two years to a “garden project”. And the worst thing: we even enjoy it! At least until the fall comes… Did I mention that we are surrounded by trees? Leafy trees!! Yeah, exactly, tons of leaves.

But it cheers me always up listening to the many lawn mowers in our area. Then I know: all slaves are paying their duties to their homes- and they love it! Like we secretly do, too.