I had the privilege of having family join me here in Stuttgart last week. It was wonderful to enjoy my/our life with a loved one! While they were here we had a conversation about where my weekly blogs had been....I guess I hadn't really thought about it, but they were right I haven't blogged in quite a spell! So why?
The reason why is actually so simple! Because this is now normal! Right, those of you who know me well are laughing I didn't say I was normal, I said this life has become my norm! At some point Germany has become home...in the sense we live here, and that's not changing! At some point I switched languages and can now understand both (like the crazy taxi driver, who tried to sell me a week at his vacation property in Greece).
I hope that most expats can agree with me, but it is like you cross an invisible line! All of a sudden this is just what we do! Wake up and live! At some point you make friends, your kids have play dates, and you forget that you are doing it all in Germany! You begin to have conversations with people about upcoming trips and you are no longer shocked they are visiting Spain because really it's a 12 hr drive away!
When a couple of us new parents first got here we used to always talk about the cost of things (Euro Shock), but somewhere along the road even the Euro became normal (even though I still love me a Target clearance rack)! Now when the price says 11 Euro it actually means 11 Euro!
Now I don't want to seem cocky because we all still have our moments when we snapped back to the reality of what living here means! Every last one of us misses someone, somewhere in the world! That can be one of the biggest challenges in making life seem normal! We all have our moments when we laugh at a misunderstanding or a cultural difference...When a friend needed an oil change a couple weeks back it cost a couple hundred Euro! These are the moments you go wait a sec, in the USA an oil change is like $40! (Lesson oil changes are not normal)
All in all I believe that life in Germany has become life! Normal is what you make it! Yes, this has become my normal! I am an expat living in Germany! It is so exciting, and yet with the crowd I run with it is so normal!
Even with the phrase normal tacked on to my life...I promise to be better about blogging!
