Puzzle Pieces

I am back on American soil. Have been for almost a week now and it's been more or less what I expected it to be. The familiar sights and sounds, the small things that have thrown me off (e.g. free refills and water) and sliding right back into the American way of life. This year has been a crazy ride and I can't quite find all my thoughts yet but I do want to write this down before I forget.

When I was thinking about returning to the United States throughout the year, a common theme surfaced in my head: how I'm going to look to other people after year. Not physically, of course, I don't think looks change that much in a year but I am so fearful of how my behaviors will look to someone who wasn't along for the ride. Even explaining a story to someone interested can end up sounding like a bragging Spiel. I don't want to be that guy, but it seems almost impossible not to be if I ever want anyone to know what I went through during the year. Finding no solution, I supposed it'd have to be a trial by fire.

So far I've passed.

This week was filled with reunions and there will be many more as I head back from New York to home sweet home in the heart of North Carolina. What's shocked me the most about this time being back is how quickly things with people I hadn't seen in almost a year and activities I haven't done in that same span of time seemed relatively comfortable. I may be an outlier but it was as if I activated the multitasking app on an iPhone; the moment I shifted back to the America app, things continued running the way I remember them.

In absolutely no manner does this mean there aren't things I see as uncomfortable and "oddly" out of place but I haven't yet faced those battles myself. I should thank my friends for that, we didn't skip a beat and it makes things so much better before I can get absorbed into my own thoughts of self-loathing and Germany-missing. There are so many parts of myself that I left back in Germany, I managed to haul a suitcase full of crap back with me but there are plenty of things that I couldn't throw over my shoulder before hopping onto that 787. I think I've started to realize this is simply how my life will be led. I deliberately found a second home, a land that I looked at and consciously thought, "this place looks awesome, let's start dedicating time to it." What else did I expect?

I used a Voldemort reference and Horcruxes all the way back in Deutschland but I think that's kind of how my spirit feels. There's a sliver of Clifford just roaming Germany waiting for its host to return. Certainly the sliver wandering around America is refreshed to have its host back, uncertain for how long he will stick around this time and curious as to how he will react to being in a land where the smallest nuances make the biggest cultural differences.

Yet, despite this duality that may seem troubling, it's fascinating to see my behavior since our return journey. There's more of me to be expressed and to interact with. I catch myself (more times than I might like to admit to a psychiatrist) talking to myself in German, as if I want to have a conversation with German Clifford. The one who's all those miles away just lingering, waiting. Is this a phenomenon of the well traveled bunch? I imagine the personality as a large puzzle, each piece has a dedicated spot; core traits taking their positions at the respective corners of the board.

What if, however, there were multiple puzzle pieces for each spot of the board? Two pieces that fit perfectly into each spot and corner, all completing the puzzle in perfect symmetry. There are two different ways Clifford would act if he were, say, stepping onto a basketball court with a bunch of strangers. German Clifford would, not because he's unfriendly or lacks curiosity, simply walk on the court and start playing. American Clifford would smile, say hello, ask how often these guys played here, not necessarily because he's super friendly and curious. I know this because I've been both.

Now what though? I am certain that as I place puzzle pieces in their spots as I prepare to face each day some aspects of my German Horcrux self will float into their well-deserved niche without a second notice. The red, white and blue pieces are sometimes switched with the black, red and yellow pieces.  I was gone for a year; a long enough time that I adopted habits that are not, necessarily, "normal" for American standards. Perhaps I should prepare a speech explaining to each and every person somewhere along the lines of, "Oh sorry, I was in Germany for a year, I'm just getting back into the swing of this American life. You guys do it so differently over here." Then I sound like that guy all over again.

Maybe I'll just have to get better at puzzles.

Such Sweet Sorrow

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

-Romeo & Juliet (Act II. Scene II)

I have never really been the emotional type. Graduation from high school was a natural step. The people I wanted to see again, I was sure I would see again and the people I'd been acquainted with...well if we crossed paths it'd be nice to see you again but I wasn't going to have a conniption about it. College was pretty much the same, I had my group of friends who I know I'll stay close with (the same group I talk to on a daily basis even all the way across the Atlantic Ocean) after everything was said and done and those subsidiary friends, who were going to get a text every now and then, they were just that. This is all to say I have never really had to go through what I'm going through now.

William Shakespeare (or any collection of writers who created Romeo & Juliet) once informed us of the sweet sorrow of parting. I can relate to this oxymoronic statement perfectly; it seems me and my buddy William have more in common than a keen way with words. The reason Juliet told Romeo that parting with him was a sweet yet sorrowful action was, perhaps, because she was implying that doing anything with Romeo brought pleasure to her brain. I had a sort of Juliet moment this evening. 

Today was my last Lacrosse practice in Münster and while most of the two and a half hours I spent with the team were completely normal, it was when I was saying my goodbyes that the emotions really started to hit me. Perhaps this is how you are supposed to feel when faced with separation, but it was a wholly new feeling for me. This is my family, there was never a dark enough time, a painful enough, difficult enough time in my stay in Germany that I couldn't look ahead to the next practice and think, "At least I'll be with the team soon." As much as a crutch as one can have in a foreign situation, that was my Lacrosse team.

And so, although I have tried my best to remain emotionally guarded, and although they know I regard them very highly, I let myself become the emotional type. I don't know, maybe it's because this seems so definite. High school never seemed like a true parting ceremony because I still have a home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27517 that I return to religiously. College was the same. I know I have a home at The House and my "family" travels with me wherever I go, even if merely by telephone. This, too, may end up fostering relationships that last a lifetime, I have no doubt that there are friendships and family bonds I have made during this year that will continue to bud and grow, that was never a concern. The real issue for me, the real concern and trigger that caused the wave of emotion to come over me is that it's so much more definite. This may literally have been the last time I see some of those faces again, the last time I catch a pass from a teammate or yell instructions, in frustration, at a great friend. It's something that hasn't ever hit me as hard as this time around and it might be because I have always had a sense of understanding that there would be a next time. 

There isn't quite such a sense of "next time" with Münster, Westfalen, Deutschland, Postleitzahl 48151. I can say as much as I want that I'll be back, and I truly believe I will, I know in my heart of hearts I will, but unlike Chapel Hill, which barring me peeling over and making a premature trip to the pearly gates will be graced with my presence once more, I can't be certain. That's a beauty of life that I think I've developed in this year. We are so used to knowing everything, having a plan and executing the plan in the exact manner that we drew it up. We are disappointed when our plans don't pan out the way we wanted them to and we see ourselves as failures when things change or veer off course. This year has been one of spontaneity, of trust and of leaping off the cliffs and looking once I've landed, thankful that it was only a five foot drop every time my feet touched down soundly on the ground. 

Maybe that's the entire lesson I'm trying to teach myself as my fingers rapidly dash across the keyboard, searching for an answer that I've yet to find. The ground here is solid. It has been a tough ride, a hard journey, far away from my family, far away from every soul I'd previously called a friend but it's finally over. The car has stopped and we're slowly unpacking our luggage, a sigh of relief escaped somewhere from the back seat and the keys were pulled out of the ignition as we finally reached our destination. I glance over the driver's seat to see everything that was left in the rear view and smile, relieved that I finally made it to where I wanted to be, where I thought I'd be after all this time. Then I realize I have to turn back, head back home, back to where the journey started. 

There's nothing wrong with a return journey, it's just that this ground, this destination is so solid. The peace and quiet of a still engine and the knowledge that a vehicle has finally been able to settle down after being pushed to the brink to get to this firmament. "Are we there yet" someone whines from the back, and just as I want to answer yes, the destination changes. It will be exhausting, long and full of trouble and toil heading back from where I came, and the sights, sounds, and hitch hikers I picked up along the way are sure to be etched into my memory as the mile markers pass by. 

And as much as I'm sure that I'll be ready for another road trip, the roads of life are ever changing. So I keep the image I saw in my rear view locked into my memory, in case the car breaks down along the way. 

Verdeutsch dich!

Twenty-five days. Three plus weeks. 

Had someone asked me at the beginning of this project of mine if I'd have been able to take a twenty-five day hiatus from writing I would have looked at them utterly insulted. How dare they assume I would even take a one day hiatus! But I did, and it was lovely because I was starting to feel a bunch of convolution in my ideas. So please forgive me for my negligence and let me continue to tell my story...! 

I got a message from a future PPPler via Facebook recently and it helped me get my mind back on track more than anything else could have. The questions were the innocuous concerns of a young person preparing to up and relocate at the drop of a hat. I was more than happy to oblige but it got me thinking about the re-relocating. 

There are less days for me here in Europe (24) than my hiatus, and if I manage to not blog in that time period, just know that you would have missed my exodus from Germany. Perhaps, however, it would be better if I didn't write anything else for the next month and a day and just let it all fester until that fateful July 17th when I say goodbye to my Schatz Deutschland for yet another time. You'd think a thing like separation would be like aged wines: if you mean it becomes sour, painful to swallow and unappealing vinegar, it does; if you mean it gets more appealing and exciting with age, it don't. Ten bucks to anyone who can identify the improved movie reference without the internet. But I'm not here to talk about separation, I'm here to talk about reunion, about expectations and about being a stranger in my own land. 

We were in Berlin for our ending seminar just a week ago. Along with a number of other amazing opportunities, our entire program stormed the US Embassy, I'm talking 350 young people (the other couple high school branches decided to tag along with us, all the while ruining my perception of their age range) taking over the US Embassy. It was a harmless little gesture but something that made me realize just how German I have become. I'd just finished drinking a can of Canada Dry and, in the midst of chatting it up with friends on the green American soil of the Embassy, I wanted to toss it out. I casually walked inside certain I'd be able to find some sort of place to toss out my can and to no avail I finally asked the kind American woman working there. Surely she would be able to get me out of my dilemma, after all she was an employed woman, she probably got this question all the time. She would answer it quickly and I'd be on my way. Easy as pie. 

"Oh, there's a trash can right around the corner." 

Just like that, everything clicked in my head. I was in America. A trash can? A universal disposal device. It doesn't matter what you want to throw away, you just toss it in a trash can and your worries are over. I mean the thing even managed to produce R2-D2, of course it could solve the problems of an empty Canada Dry container. The real issue is, I couldn't believe myself. What kind of answer was that...how "un-German" of this woman was it to offer up a trash can to throw away my precious aluminum. I swallowed my German pride and threw the damned thing in the container and with all the hypocricy of Judas I smiled a bit. This was a conflict of self that I'd never experienced before, something amazing I couldn't foresee a year ago. 

For any of us who speak both German and English, we know that there's a nice little combination of the two called Denglish. It's a fun thing to do, spit out a German word in an English sentence or spit out an English word in a German sentence. Sometimes there just aren't the passende Wörter for what we're trying to express. This is, of course a gift and a curse. The ability to spit out a word in either language and have everyone understand it is not only fun, it sometimes is the only way to get a point across. I think I've Denglished myself pretty well too. That meaning there are plenty of parts of myself that have become more "German" than "American" and it's something I am increasingly interested to see translate back in the US of A. 

I can imagine being irritated by some of the things Americans love to do. The funny thing is, I can't for the life of me tell you exactly what things they'll be. Will it be something as small as watching someone throw a can away or as big as thinking the way that certain Americans act, dress, or carry out their lives is seriously odd. I catch myself saying things to people I wouldn't have said before this year. German forces you to be direct, it forces you to get out your feelings in a way that isn't so sugary and nice as I'm used to as an American. Instead of "you could have done that better" it's "you did that wrong." This is, of course, ok with me, else I wouldn't have picked a country like Germany as a prime candidate to split my being into two. 

Perhaps this is something that happens everywhere someone goes. I'm sure when I moved from Chapel Hill to Atlanta there were plenty of things/habits/opinions I picked up along the way but maybe since the two cities are vaguely similar it wasn't something that hit me as hard or perhaps since I could travel between the two cities whenever I wanted to I never really had a moment of clarity like the R2-D2 incident at the US Embassy. I am, however, very fascinated to see what things from Germany stick with me once I hit the ol' dusty trail back to the West. 

I've already got the recycling thing down packed.

Taking The Long Way There

Once again, I have had nothing to write about for the past week. Maybe the new and different things I see in Germany have stopped having an effect on me, maybe I've gotten into such a routine that there haven't been as many opportunities for weird things to happen to me, or maybe I've just had writer's block. Regardless, the foreseeable future doesn't look to bright unless I force myself out of this slump right now. So, for your enjoyment and reading pleasure, I'm going to write about something I have yet to touch on in huge detail throughout this year: myself.

Gah...I know, I know! I'm wholly uninteresting, even boring compared to an entire country, a lovely little land, such as Germany, but I'll add a twist to keep you interested. I'm going to write about how I think I've changed thanks to Germany. Pay attention, because this will be the most times I ever use a so many personal and personal possessive pronouns in writing, ever. That in itself should merit a quick read.

Who am I? It's a question people ask themselves at various stages of life.

There is the youth, who is just starting to develop a wider (for everyone in Germany, the first time I wrote "breiter." This switching your brain back and forth thing is for the birds) sense of personal understanding and recognition. They are, per realism theory, beginning to maximize their self-interest and Kantian utilty. The questions they ask themselves are as follow: "What type of shoes should I make mom buy me so the kids think I'm cool?" "What sport should I play?" "I don't want to take piano lessons anymore, why should my parents make me!?" and so on and so forth.

There is the post-pubescent. He is moody, angry, angsty, and passionate. The questions he asks himself are much more intimately related to the confusing phase of life he's in. "Should I try drugs?" "Do I want to have sex?" "Why are my parents so controlling?" "Where are my friends?" Interestingly enough, this post´-pubescent mode of thinking is very limited to the present, rarely do the questions of the future dominate the thought process. The question of, "What do I want to do with my life" comes in the next phase.

There is the late teens, early twenties mentality. It starts off very similar to the post-pubescent thinking: self-gratifying--actually rather similar to the rationally acting youth stage--and short sighted. Then the brain develops a bit more and concerns begin to manifest. "Who am I?" "What do I believe in?" "What am I doing?" "Where am I going?"

The questions press on, create stresses and sure as grass is green, at around 25 the thoughts become stressful, long-termed and the decisions feel absolute--this is the first of many life crises that people have.

I'm not quite to that phase, the one where things seem absolute, or any of that quarter-life-panic of the sort, but it's a solid gauge for trying to answer typical twenty-something questions.

 Where am I going? What am I doing? Who am I?

I was ready to go straight to law school after undergrad, I couldn't see my life playing out any other way. It honestly took some serious prodding from my sister and her boyfriend for me to even consider any alternatives (thanks Mallory, you have been the best sister I could ever ask for) I think to some degree I'd fallen into this thinking that if I weren't moving forwards (i.e., getting a degree, getting a job) I wasn't growing. Oh how wrong I was. This year may indeed help me towards some of my end goals, but as a whole, it has taken one year of my "earning potential as an employed person" away from me.

It could have taken five. If it meant five times the growth.

People define themselves very often by what they do, as if that were an accurate telling of a person. I think it's dangerous, foolish and singular minded to do such a thing. When I tell someone "I am going to Stanford Law School next year" they can make AT MOST two fairly accurate of assumptions about my person: 1) That I'm good friends with Lady Luck 2) That I want to get my law degree. Honestly, those pieces of information don't weave any narrative about me. The problem, however, is that they come up with so many more by themselves that are completely false. There has to be a better way to answer these questions about ourselves and for me, the answers haven't always been pleasant but I am thankful to give testament of how Germany, my other love, has helped me.

I imagine what my life would have been like had I taken the next "logical step". Perhaps I would have had my heading and know exactly what my life was going to entail but I don't think so. Not only that but I would probably not have discovered so many marvelous aspects about myself in such a short amount of time.

I think I've changed quite dramatically in 10 months. For people who've known me for a long time, no fear, they are so slight and fragmented that you wouldn't see a different person in front of you, but they're there. Maybe it's the simple maturation process. After all, I am far away from my family, and have been forced to learn to take care of business in a way that is very much my own way.

That, perhaps, is the thing that I am most pleased with discovering. Everyone has their own way of doing things, their own way of handling adverse situations and their own way of coping. I can go through a checklist in my head now and tell you how I would react in any hypothetical situation. Refreshing doesn't begin to describe the satisfaction it's instilled in me to be able to analyze myself in such a way. To put it plainly, the "Who am I" part of my question has been thoroughly conquered by being in ma cherie Deutschland. Now I am not naive (or at least that naive) enough to think that I won't learn more about myself each day I spend on this earth but being removed from distractions and routines that I have in America has been a clarifying experience.

There are certainly still plenty of lingering questions that I won't be able to answer and uncomfortable moments of displeasure and uncertainty but I am truly happy for the time I've spent here and I have been able to answer things about myself I couldn't imagine figuring out:

I am a confident, cheerful, slightly crazy and frustrating young man. I love my alone time almost as much as I love bringing smiles to people's faces. I love art, making it (writing) and experiencing it in its numerous outlets. I love challenges, I live day by day and hope to get better every. single. day. while watching myself fail as much as I succeed and it's okay because it drives me to keep living. I'm a son, a brother, a friend. That's who I am, and I'm completely ok with it.

They're things I hope don't change with the ebbs and flows of future careers and dreams, things I thank Germany for helping me to find out.

And she'll always have a special place in my heart for holding my hand as we took the back roads.

The Golden Years

 "The bad news is that time flies. 

The good news is that you're the pilot."

-Anonymous

I have been away from the keyboard for quite some time. It's not that I had nothing to write about, quite the contrary actually. As usual there are many half-completed thoughts, posts, and notes that my eyes continue to scurry across but each time I look to finish one of them, I find myself running directly into a block I cannot conquer. It took me up until today; I found my muse in the form of a blog post I just read, it was the adventures of a twenty-something like me on the travel path. It got me thinking (as always, a dangerous thought) and I know why I can't write right now: with my time waning down here in Germany, my heart is starting to get just a little bit heavier. Every day at work is one day closer to my last, every missed opportunity to see friends, have deep conversations with my host family and basically just absorb everything I can has so much more weight than it did a few months ago. That means I have to pick what I want to write about more carefully. 

Today I'm feeling especially poetic so I will put this down before I go yet another day without blogging.

After joking and discussing our program to great extent months ago, my friends and I came to the conclusion that our exchange year is, at its best, a microcosmic view of life. I'll expound upon that thought a bit here:

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We started naked, bare, quite unprepared for what lay before us. Our bibs were washed clean and lessons taught to us before curious souls were let loose into a new world. Quickly we scrambled to learn the language, master its nuances, find our routines and adjust to our new lives. Passions were found, favorite foods, beers, wines, sports, parks, museums, homes. 

Suddenly, unexpectedly creeping up on us like a thief in the night, we were kicked out the door, forced to up and move to a new place, make new friends and take everything we'd learned in our developmental phases with us towards the future. There were bumps along the road, friendships that never worked out, maybe even a low point or two but we made it through. We were no longer fledglings, we'd found our sea legs: there were new friends, new routines, new experiences and above all there were moments we'd wake up and say "I'm doing this, not everyone can (or even has the opportunity) to integrate into a new culture and make it work." Honestly, we were making strides; ready to settle into our new lives. 

Perhaps a relocation or two were still involved, maybe even an entirely new plan we'd never expected, but once things got comfortable we were once again swept off our feet. This time it was a little more expected; we had, after all chosen our own paths and we'd proudly made it to the employed world. Careers were budding, more responsibilities piled upon us day by day. There were certainly disappointing days, maybe even a disappointing career choice or two but they were our mistakes to make and our decisions to rectify. 

And here we are now, nearing the twilight of our careers. Thinking of what still has to be done and what we're still regretting not doing. Looking forward to those two weeks in July as our quasi-retirement vacations. There will be plenty of sun, plenty of enjoyment, and remembering everything that happened to us over the past year, but just as we start to yearn to go back, maybe even need to go back, our German lives vanish.

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Please don't take it the wrong way, I don't mean to be a downer. On the contrary I think it's beautiful to be able to have such a swell of mixed emotion and feeling about something as grand as life in one year. But this Cliff's Notes version of our program, and on some more abstract scale of life, is only to be  used as a device for the main thought that's been pressing me again today. 

Don't waste your time putting things off. 

I came into this year with so many goals to accomplish, so many dreams I was certain I would get done. Granted I will get most of them done before I leave, but it's the ones I will not get done that will stick with me. 

I never got to London, a shame because I would have loved to hear that funny accent and flaunt my beautiful southern twang as I reminded the redcoats that ours is english too. 

I never saw every German state. I will get through more than half, yes, but to truly understand the differences in cultures and come to my all-encompassing thesis of Germany I need to hit them all.

I missed out on some friendships that could have been worthwhile. This one is less dramatic to me because I have fostered plenty of great relationships with people I get along well with, maybe I am just greedy. 

This is a life lesson I've learned over and over again. Maybe writing it out will help it to stick this time. My lesson to you, you curious reader you, is to do things that make you happy, make sure that you find a way to prioritize and get them done. Time doesn't wait on us, some much wiser woman than I could ever hope to be (except the woman part) said that, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” So I will empart Mother Teresa's advice unto you. Don't use age, whether it be too old or too young as an excuse not to do something, and don't let your dreams or goals slip away without fighting for them. 

German Clifford is getting older, his bones creek in the morning, his teeth need work, the gray hairs have become oh so noticeable and he can't keep up with the youngsters anymore. But that doesn't mean he's not going to cling to every moment, every memory from this point forward to see and do things he may never get to do again. 

And you should too, wherever you are.

The Impossible Dream

 That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star.

 -Joe Darion 

I never wanted to be the President of the United States.

Those dreams seldom crossed my mind. I was satisfied with my goals of writing novels, going to the NBA and winning the Super Bowl. So I sat myself down preparing to check each one of those off of my list, I wrote as often as I could, stirring together tales so marvelous, magical that J.K. Rowling would feel intimidated; I played plenty of basketball, I remember every time Duke lost as a child I would go outside and shoot 100 shots, no matter the hour; and I played enough football that nowadays my legs feel about 20 years older than the rest of my body. I already had big ambitions, a United States President? No that wasn't for me.

I ponder now in retrospect, if it had anything to do with how far away it seemed from me. Clinton was a white man with graying hair; Bush, Jr. was a white man with graying hair who, at age 14 or so, I was confident I was smarter than. This distance is something I'm sure some of my peers never had to deal with. They were, at age ten, already prepared to become Senators and Representatives. Me on the other hand, those ambitions seldom reached my hyper-active imagination. Becoming a wizard was totally feasable, travelling to Narnia? only the right wardrobe away, but president never appeared as a blip on my metaphorical radar.  No thought ever went into the process: what strides people made, what led one to  becoming a person deemed as "presidential." The irony in this is, of course, I followed in my mother's footsteps to becoming a political science major once I got to college.

There are always moments that I swear will stick. The ones so vivid, so meaningful that I just know that I will remember them for a lifetime. On the contrary, I don't remember very many of those moments. They are so exciting, so magical that the imagination takes over making it hard to differentiate the reality from fiction. Why is it that the peculiar memories stick with us? What about them gels to our psyches refusing to go away? I have plenty of moments that have clung to the edges of my brain and one of them comes to me at this writing juncture. 

The scene is fresh in my mind. I was in Macy's back home, only a few short years ago after the election of America's first black president. The shopping trip was normal. Nothing unexpected happened, honestly, but I took away from that trip something that I hadn't embraced for the previous twenty years of my life: a different perspective. She was a plump kind lady, her complexion only a few shades lighter than mine and a wide, toothy smile that made you want to smile back. Her name could have been anything, but let's call her Hope. Hope asked me curiously what school I attended. Usually these kinds of questions from cashiers are a bit intrusive to me, but she had that wide, toothy smile. I told her I was going to be a Morehouse Man; she told me I was going to be the next Obama.

I never want to be the President of the United States

When I have kids, however; their pigment will have some of their father in it. People will recognize the Ghanaian and African-American blood that flows in their veins well before they ever hear them cry, whimper, speak, or laugh. Maybe that dream, the one I never had will be something they can obtain. I genuinely appreciate my president for that. He may not be the best, he may even be considered a failure by some, but thanks to him, my kids might meet Hope and she can tell them at a young enough age that they are going to be the next President of the United States.

That's my definition of the American Dream. I have been asked so many times here: "Is the American Dream alive?" The question caused me to think, what did I really believe insofar as this "dream" is concerned. Although I don't think the chance for one to go from street sweeper to John D. Rockefeller is something all that prevalent in American society, what I just wrote about is. There is something in American soceity that wills people to dream beyond their means, their capabilities, their resources and become something perversely opposite of what their socio-economic standing would suggest.

It's a line of thinking that's become more clear as I see the lack of such a similar dream here. Please don't mistake me, there are plenty of ambitious and driven members of German society, but there isn't that same mindset. If in two alternate universes I had a little black girl, one in Germany and one in America, my dreams for her would be very different, respectively. She could be CEO, President, first woman in the NBA in America; in Germany she could be a great teacher, lawyer, doctor. This is not, to say that Germany is less fit for these things...no we are comparing apples to apples here; it's that those boundaries have been tested, strained, pushed much more openly (by necessity) than they have here. I am also not pre-supposing that those boundaries won't be conquered by the time I have that little black girl, but they haven't been yet and I am writing in the present, not the future. 

I must concede part of this stems from the distrust that they have of positions of power thanks to a murky, misguided past their grandparents and great-grandparents fostered, or stood by idly to watch. Americans open their arms to the successful, we love our CEOs (even when we are jealous of them), we are genuinely proud when someone makes it: we root for Hillary Clinton, we cheer for Jeremy Lin, we scream for Oprah because they were at some point the underdogs. We may even be spiteful of their success:potential ratio (the amount of success we would predict someone to have based on their capabilities; George Bush, Jr.'s success:potential ratio is extremely high because his "success" greatly surpasses his potential) by claiming we could do exactly what they do ten times better, we pretend to be skeptical of them, we pretend to mistrust them; yet above all, we allow them to live and ultimately many of us aspire to be just like them. Even the starkest Obama hater will plead for the president's help every time North Korea pretends to want to start a game of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare with America. Even the biggest Kobe Bryant hater will nod in respect when he hits a clutch game-winning shot. Perhaps even the biggest Kim Kardashian haters will--no I can't find anything for this one.

The point is, we dream big and we give credit to those who dreamed before us. So although I cannot say that the American Dream is alive in the sense that I can throw a pickaxe over my shoulder before I head to California next year and hope to strike gold, I can confidently say that if Clarence Thomas can become a Supreme Court Justice, then so can I.

Dream big Germany, it's something we Americans do quite well.

Americanization Station

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming

It's hard being an expat.

That thought hit me full blast after this weekend. The sun and Germany have finally committed to a steady relationship and Lacrosse season has begun to wind back up. We had a game this weekend and although the victory was certainly awesome and left me with new bruises and sore legs, the more lasting experience was meeting a couple of Americans. 

I find it interesting--the last time I was here, I definitely felt like I had become -less- American. That is to say, I had become more aware about things around me on an international level. It might have also been because I still saw three months, one summer in Germany, as a vacation and I didn't really ever feel that far away from my America (possessive), now I do. The conversation started very organically during the game. My defender started speaking to me in english, and while I was thrown off for a moment, the pronunciation of his words, slight twang that could have been northern, and confidence to speak all hinted  at one thing I've becoming increasingly good at identifying: he was American.

Honestly, earlier in the year I found the presence of Americans that I didn't know as a bit of a nuisance. I didn't want them tarnishing the beautiful job we'd done of polishing up America's reputation here. This has rather perversely changed in the past few months. Whenever I hear that beautiful American accent on the streets, in the store, on the Lacrosse field, a bit of my soul warms. I have done a bunch of Germany thrashing in the past few weeks but that has nothing to do with my love for her, it's just how much of my heart stayed home on the range.

What perhaps, hit me the hardest about our conversation after the game had ended was his analysis of being a genuine expat (he's been here since 2008). The statement was something I'd already imagined but it was much more powerful hearing it from someone else; it became more tangible than it had ever been before. He said to me "Yeah, it's get's easier. It's never easy being so far away from everything else but it get's easier." This coming from someone who hadn't seen his family since 2011 and here I am complaining about not seeing mine for nine months.

It gets easier. 

Yes, I can see that. As life got more comfortable and relationships became more solid I can imagine it getting easier. I have carved out a pretty solid niche here. I appreciate my work and the environment, I have family some two hours away as a great security blanket, my host family is more than that...you might as well cross the host out, and my friends, particularly my teammates are awesome people who I love spending time around. I love living here, there are so many things I've seen and experienced in Germany. But it's still hard. It's gotten easier, yeah, I've learned what is normal, what isn't; how to get around, how to create relationships with people and I have learned so much about myself. I could imagine a life here--whether another year, five years, a lifetime but at the same time I it's hard imagine burying the past 22 years of my life in a coffin and being reborn as an expatriate.

Does that ever get easier?

Who knows, I honestly don't and I'm sure the answers will clear themselves up as I keep living, all I know is I cannot wait to touch down on American soil, grab a big greasy burger, speak english, drive with the window down and the tunes blasting and giving no cares, walk onto a random basketball court and play with complete strangers, and watch the superbowl--not hearing complaints because commercials and pauses in between plays are too long.

So if I never grab the courage to come back to Germany for an extended time, or even an open ended time...don't worry baby, it's not you, it's me.

The Road Less Travelled

I am so old! After a birthday weekend with the perfect friends and family and a ridiculous amount of time away from writing, I finally missed it enough to clear my head for this post. Finally this blog post will be written; the one that has been a blank slate for too long and was originally intended for "publication" the first of this month.... Like seriously, it's just been sitting there haunting me, so without further delay...

On to my banterings.

I'm afraid I've been thinking (a dangerous pastime, I know), after randomly running into one of my fellow PPPlers and close friend Jesse and his family in the middle of Switzerland, about a few things. Yes, you read that correctly, I randomly ran into one of my close friends in the middle of SWITZERLAND. This isn't like we were both going to the mall, we both happened to be in the middle of Zürich, a city we'd never been to before, at the same time and same location so that we could run into each other. Those things don't happen. Call it kismet, call it fate, that phenomenon requires an entire book by itself.

So to avoid being too wordy I'll go another way:  maybe we--I use this term loosely to encapsulate all of the fellow PPPlers/Americans I've had the distinct pleasure of getting to know during this year--are an anamoly. What's so anamolic about the motly crew?

Well, simply put, we travel a lot.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine, in which he insinuated that I had seen more of Europe than he had. Now this may not be inaccurate, but how could that possibly be so? I wanted to shrug it off as a normal phenomenon, I'm sure my German counterparts in the USA have seen more than I have there too but I couldn't shake the thought, trying to answer the why.


After all, this is someone who's spent the majority of his life living in Alemania and then there's me: pushing a whole year and a few months through the twenty-two-plus-one years of my life. This is a land that borders nine different countries, with a handful of others that are only a hop, skip, and a jump away. I am sure there are valid reasons for certain things, for example, I as a North Carolinian have never had the desire to go visit Tennessee. As a matter of fact, Tennessee seems a world away and matter of fact, I'd probably laugh if someone told me they were planning a trip to Tennessee which is perhaps as foreign as some of the lands I've visited here. But here I have the desire to go everywhere, to spread my metaphorical wings and explore.

So then, what exactly flipped in my mind? What exactly does this wanderlust stem from? Did I get to Europe and just realize that everything here is better? The lands are prettier? The people are nicer? Well, not exactly, there are plenty of beautiful things in America I haven't bothered seeing that would probably require the same amount of resources as my travels here have and as for people? As an aggregate sample, America: 1, Germany: 0. Well then, what?

Necessity? Fear?

I'm not exactly a free soul in the sense that I know that for at least the next three years I'll be relatively barred from my second home in Europe. The world has gotten so much smaller, but there's still a big body of water between the continents. I'm definitely not getting younger. The days of being a free bird are counting down. Why not use this time then, to do what I probably won't get to do in the coming years, when other issues pile up so quickly that you lose sight of those original adventures you set out to have. If any of us have seen Up (if you haven't stop reading my blog and watch it. Now.) then we know that some goals never come to pass the way we intended them to, I don't want to have to rely on helium and balloons to get to where I want to go, so why not go?

I am exploiting my youth, my drive to do things without worrying about the far stretching consequences, the opportunity costs, the economics of life. That is going to be left for the 30 year old Clifford to handle. Heck, use your youth while you still have it to do the things that shape who you are as a person for the rest of your life. Or else all the stupid stuff we did as adolescents is worth it.


Since I have an affinity to Mark Twain in this blog, I'll use his words once more, "Travel is fatal to bigotry, prejudice and narrow-mindedness." Would I call myself a bigot? amurikah. Prejudice? Amurikah. Narrow-Minded? AMURIKAH.

...maybe travel is more necessary for me than I thought...

Now I am not going to say that Europeans are less worldy than us Americans (even though we did get to the moon first...), because that'd be silly, but it has been interesting to see how much more excited a group of
Amis will get about a travel plan, as compared with Europeans. We're used to the long treks, heck, I had to drive 6 hours on a regular to get from Atlanta back home to Chapel Hill during college. We're not particularly put off by spontaneity, which makes planning a much easier endeavor, and maybe that little hint of fear; the thought that, "this might be the last time I really get to do this" creeps in.


So with my youth, I want to see everything I can before the enevitable real world hits me in the face.

Granted, for some people travelling is the "real world", those people who've taken that Frostian route and dedicated a huge chunk of their life to exploring all the lands, continents, cultures out there. As they should. Find one of them, ask them if they have any regrets.

I doubt it.

Barring the financial restraints--a necessary evil, or else I'd be eating Top Ramen everyday for the rest of my life and no travel is worth that torture--I haven't felt so free to do what I have wanted to do in a long time, maybe ever before in my life and I'm forever grateful for that.

All I know is I'm happy I can read that fateful poem and say that I too, time and time again, know exactly what it feels like to take that turn.

                               

Cash or Credit?

America, how I love you. Germany, how I love you too. The theme hasn't changed over the seven odd months I've been here but there's one thing--that I noticed from the very beginning of all this adventuring thing--that hasn't sat well with me about Germany.

What is up with this cash flow economy?

It seems like a holistically European thing from what I gather but since my experiences are made up 99% of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland I'm gonna talk about it for 99% of the time.

*Cue some awkward completely irrelevant "we are the 99%" Occupy movement in 3...2...*

All I Wanted

...like seriously, I was sitting at work last week (a great experience thus-far) and I wanted to go to the store to buy some gummi/y (which one is it?) bears, because I have a minor obsession with them, when I realized my craving wouldn't be tempered any time soon. Why? Elementary, my Dear Watson (I can guarantee with 100% certainty that no one who reads my blog's name is Watson) I had no cash on me (A second reason might have been because it's still freezing here and I didn't have the guts to go outside in the sub-freezing temperatures [I'm really abusing parentheses this blog post]).

Big no-no Germany. You lost my patronage all because I was terrified of the look I'd get from the cashier if I walked to the register, whipped out a card and proceeded to pay with it. Like throwing a 2 Euro purchase on a credit/debit card is the sin of all sins. Do they not understand that they are LOSING my money because I literally feared the cashier's glare.

Literally. Feared. Paying. With. A. Card.

I seriously and not just for dramatic blogging effect, seriously just cringed typing that sentence. That's how foreign it is to me. I'm an American! I have the RIGHT to pay with a credit/debit card whenever/wherever and for as little or as much as I want. So WHAT if I have $4,000,000 of debt on my Black Card, swipe that baby one more time at the Chick-fil-A drive through. It'll get paid back--somehow. The true American Dream is the ability to shovel out as much money as you want (according to your credit limit) without a second thought. This whole "spending what you have" nonsense has worn off on me. At first I thought it was cool, you know, having money and spending it, but now I'm annoyed.

You ever been to a bar? If you're in my peer group, the assumption's going to be yes. This is only because of a certain necessity within our age bracket not because you're a raging alcoholic. If you haven't been to a bar...then you should give yourself a pat on the back for whatever you've been doing with your free time since you hit 21. I've been to a bar, a few actually, and one thing I can tell you about bars in America is that credit cards are an amazing commodity. "Put it on my tab" is the most ridiculous, brilliant, thing ever and it forces people into silly decisions with money and alcohol. I  wouldn't even brave putting something on a tab here, I'd probably get kicked out for even mentioning such a thing. I'm kidding, I am sure there's some places you can use a credit card to pay in a bar...but they're probably owned by Americans, frequented by Americans and happen to be in...well, you get the picture. When I go out in Germany, it's already expensive so it's only natural that I want to ball so hard.

Bands will make her dance; traveler's checks won't.

I guarantee half of you didn't get the urban reference, whatever...I tried.

I am half kidding about this; of course I definitely see the benefit of the way Germany's cash economy works; brief aside: this is not to say that people don't have credit/debit cards on hand, it's just that the frequency of someone using one--of someone using one for, let's say, gummy/i bears-- is drastically decreased. I actually respect the idea behind it, I just don't understand and can't quite get behind the aversion to plastic. Maybe this isn't a problem for everyone who travels to Germany, maybe some people are more used to carrying large amounts of cash on them all the time but it's not really something I'd been accustomed to before this journey which necessarily means it's something I still struggle with now.

I could have vented more but I decided that everything is right in the world, March Madness starts soon and I kind of feel like a boss tossing out 50 euro bills to buy 95 cent gummi/y bears.

But SERIOUSLY where were Jay-Z and Kanye Euro-partying when they were writing Watch the Throne? Or did they just get the Illuminati memo to carry cash with you in Europe? My membership doesn't get renewed until next week; I tried to pay with credit card but it got declined...

Through the Looking Glass

"Things do not change; we change"

-Henry David Thoreau 

This blog post was started and finished on March 6, 2013. One of the rare times I've sat down with an idea and just shot it out without having to go to sleep, getting up and going somewhere or running straight into writer's block. The purpose of this statement is to say that a little over half of my time in German is behind me: a perfect time for a post like this I think.

There's nothing like getting up and leaving everything you've ever known behind.

Those securities that you once had: the familiar places you could frequent whenever you needed a little reminder of who you are vanish mercilessly. All you're left with is your bare bones, whatever you lugged on your back, and a subtle understanding of how human interactions work, hoping your awkward social skills will reap the rewards of a golden friendship or two. It's a rather liberating experience really: going to a new place where no one knows you, all the regrets, mistakes, etc. but a thing of the past....

...but that necessarily means that all the joys, triumphs and things that made you who you are also become a thing of the past. We're humans. Our personalities develop thanks to the interactions we have with other people; they're what we exude when we're around our friends and family.

Everyone should have an experience like my year in Germany. I know, I know, we don't all have the resources, time, or desire to up and relocate halfway across the world; the traveling part isn't important. It's the introspection. Maybe I'm an outlier and the rest of you guys are busy in self-reflection every minute of your normal lives but for me, it's something that's been magnified ten-fold after up and leaving everything behind. If my hunch is correct; however, and you're not, then maybe it's worth looking into for yourself.

No pun intended. 

We're stuck in a world that moves so fast. It's not necessarily a bad thing, hey, the increase in productivity of humanity has probably multiplied so many times over it's incalculable. Then again, it's not necessarily a good thing when I have to sit down and write a blog post about how important it is to be introspective.

What exactly happens when we no longer have our families and friends as an outlet to express ourselves? What parts of us grow? What parts of us shrink? What are the lifeless things that we can leave behind and what are the aspects of ourselves are inextricably linked to who we are? The questions certainly linger in one's head on those cold and lonely nights; far away from everything one's ever known and not quite in the mood to see every new and strange feature of one's new, foreign asylum as an adventure.

They've certainly popped into my head a time or two.

The problem with writing a blog in one sitting and in a spontaneous manner such as this one right now is that there comes a crossroad where you have to decide the next heading of the post. It's an awkward time; I'll liken it to the last two minutes before the 2nd and 4th quarters of a three point basketball or football game: so called "crunch time". Execute well and you are crowned victorious (victory in my eyes is you all's enjoyment); stumble, make small errors or choose the wrong set of plays (topics) and suffer defeat (boredom on the part of my readers). Well here it goes readers.

Down. Red Eighty-Two, Red Eighty-Two. Hic!

Not Football...in case you didn't know.

Perhaps to this point, I've made it (the introspective lulls of semi-expatriate life) sound a bit melancholy; on the contrary, it's a beautiful, liberating, enlightening sort of journey. There are so many aspects of myself that have been stretched, pulled upon, prodded and dragged out of me during my time here. What my values are, how I am around people I don't know, who I gravitate towards as friends, acquaintances, confidents...it's all a rather deep and intimate kind of development. It's something that makes you wonder why people get so comfortable in routines. Why are people so content with settling down in one place and doing one thing. Security? Fear? Good, cogent answers, but let's take it a bit further. Maybe it's the fear that getting to know those foreign sides of ourselves--the sides of us we don't like as much--those inner distant cousins who we hate to be around because they make those stinging comments that are so true but no one wants to hear. The "you've really put on weight in the last few months" or the "well that thing you did last month was dumb as crap"

The stuff that no one wants to hear. That's what our other sides bring to the table. That's why so many people settle in to doing one thing, forget about security, forget about comfort. On some intimate level it's that we might not like what we find out about ourselves if we up and try something new. We're terrified of adversity and so we're terrified our other sides.

There we go--back to melancholy. The point is: we're wrong for hiding from our inner selves as much as we do. They can teach us great things about who we are and I am so glad for those cold, lonely nights far away from everything I've ever known--the types of nights you can't get without, say, up and moving to Germany. Without them I wouldn't have learned some valuable things about myself.

And that's worth an extra blanket or two.

Fifty Shades of Gray

“Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.” 

-Sinclair Lewis 

I was ready for the cold. I had a mental checklist that I'd gone through before I arrived in Germany. After an experience my senior year during the before-I-knew-what-winter-really-was-years of my life. It was in Chicago, I'd visited the U of C Law School to check out how it tickled my fancy. The school was fine, people nice enough and the reputation of the institution itself was appealing but there was something that I couldn't get past: it was freezing in March. The wind bit at my face, its incessant howling a mocking reminder to me, "Of course it's cold here Clifford, we're right by the water." Needless to say my experience at U of C helped me along the way to deciding on some other, warmer, sunnier alternative for my impending legal doom education . 

This detour to Germany has only reemphasized how wisely I went about picking a sunny location to spend the last few years of my life law school years . No, like I said above, I'd prepared perfectly for the winter; a well reinforced jacket, a positive mentality, accessories such as gloves, beanies and scarves, and a little bit of luck (that you aren't caught in the freezing, hail/snow combination, halfway to your destination on a bike with only a jacket in between you and the elements) is all you really need to survive. Until this point there'd been very little complaint about the cold weather. 

Sweet while it lasted.  

It's not the temperature necessarily, no, it's the unbelievable duration of winter. I have been in Münster since the first of October. According to a weather website, in that time span I have seen 13 days of sunshine. Thirteen. If you're superstitious, that means the unluckiest number in the world. I cannot remember the last sunny day I had. The weather site claims it was Febuary 11th but it was characterized as a "Mostly Cloud, Partly Sunny Day" nonetheless after a weekend at Karneval I'm sure sunshine was the last thing I wanted beaming down on me. So..let's skip the Partly Sunny days (one on January 23rd) and go to the next fully sunny day. January 12. 

That's right, one sunny day since the year 2013. You know, The University of Chicago undergraduate school has adopted the nickname, "The Place Fun Goes to Die" if I had to give Germany a nickname I think I'd stay along that grain...let's call it...hmm how about: 

November 2012; Hamburg, Germany

December 2012: Münster, Germany

January 2013 Duisberg, Germany

February 2013: Starnberg, Germany

"The Place the Sun Goes to Die."

On Friday I was ready to amend this blog post, because I was granted with around three hours of heavenly sunshine and it made my bike ride to work all the more enjoyable. By two o'clock on the same day it was snowing. My black gloves were white after having to wipe white powder off of my bike--the same bike I'd ridden to work with my life soundtrack playing somewhere in the background: I'm Walking on Sunshine. 

Tip-toeing more like it. 

The snow kept coming down, and it's now Sunday, shovels scraping the sidewalks and driveways. I am in my own personal horror story. It never ends. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Alaska is #2 (23:100,000)in the United States, ordering the states by the population's suicide rate. The only state that's above the white tundra is Montana. I think that Montana owning the top spot for suicides per capita is fairly self explanatory (if I lose any readers today...they come from Montana). Is this because the lovely citizens of Russia's Neighbors see gray skies and white grounds all the time? Because it's perpetually dark and cold? Because the winters are too long and the other seasons too short? Sounds then, a lot like German winters. 

I feel like I'm writing the last passages of my diary in a deep, damp cell somewhere. The ever so slowly caving in walls across from me carved in with knife slashes, counting the days that winter has gone along. Struggling to make it through the cold, gray days and growing a beard to, to no avail, protect me from some of the wind. I feel like Jafar's alter ego, desperate, willing to kill (not even a fly...) for what I want--golden sunshine. 




The best solace I can have is that next Friday it's supposed to be sunny and 40 degrees. It's the only thing I look forward to now. In a world filled with snow, wind that tears your face apart, and clothes that simply cannot, no matter how well they're made, stop that breeze from crawling up and down your spine, I am terribly out of place.

Hey, Cupid...

Let me get this out there early: I'm a huge fan of Valentine's Day. I think it's a silly little holiday that allows people to do things that they should do normally for people they care about. Sure, it's over publicized, overloaded with ridiculous amount of wholesale chocolate and conveniently timed "romance" flicks that would never live up to likes of Westside Story, Casablanca and Gone With the Wind. Honestly, I just imagined Humphrey Bogart pulling his best Denzel impersonation, looking at Channing Tatum, and roaring starkly, "The Vow ain't got SHIT on me!"



But back to the point, Valentines Day is a wonderful, sappy, creative marketing scheme that has robbed each and every one of us who's ever bought in to the idea that there should be a day to celebrate pure emotion and feeling for someone else. Okay, the more I talk about it the stupider it gets. Eh, but this is not a critique of the wonderful american holiday Valentines Day, nor is it an evaluation of the Top 50 Romance Movies of All Time--even though I'm sure I'd be up to the task--this is about Germany's strangely siblingesque infatuation with the "american" celebration of holidays.

Now I can tell you, confidently, that our lovely Brüder & Schwestern over the pond are quite the romantics and any misconceptions of this manner should be eschewed. The funny thing is...I didn't feel out of America in the weeks leading up to Valentines Day. Chocolate stands with heart boxes; roses with balloons; red, red, red. This is all stuff I could have walked into Wal-Mart and seen. I expected something new, something original--okay, okay, counterarguments are always welcome: "Well Cliff, they do have Herzen and those are cute. How dare you say there's nothing German about their Valentines Day?" 

Well I say that, witty friend of mine, because 1) If anyone actually ever bought someone a heart like that for V-Day (abbreviations #winning) then they deserve to be shot. It's like the most cop out of cop out gifts. 2) It's not just Valentines Day. Halloween, Christmas...the holiday seasons here are so strikingly similar I sometimes feel like I'm in an episode of the Twilight Zone or maybe True Life: Germany Holidays are American/American Holidays are German.

This isn't a condemnation. It's just an observation. I got to wear a Santa Claus hat on for the weeks leading up to Christmas. Santa Claus. Yeah, yeah, Weihnachtsmann, Schweihnachtsmann. I know a Santa Claus when I see him. I got to carve a pumpkin for Halloween. That "Kotzende Kürbis" that Andreas and I made would have sat very nicely on my front steps of 103 Quarry Place. Christmas trees, trick or treating, dressing up, roses, chocolate. Holidays in Germany are GREAT! The only question is: why in the world are they so similar?

It's a chicken or the egg thing for a lot of them. I'm like 117% sure that we jacked Santa Claus from German's Weihnachtsmann. Christmas trees were in Germany before America had even been conceived. Before it was even a sparkle in Puritan expat's eyes. But you're not gonna actually argue that Germans came up with the disgustingly genius idea of marketing Valentines Day like it was Christmas. Or carving pumpkins, nahh those are better left for soups.

It's just a cool little thing to see. How cultures borrow from one another.

That girl in powerfully walking her way down the street with roses in her hand? Power to her. How about the one biking with a teddy bear stuffed in her backpack? That's true dedication. And it's not even something bad. Germany took a little piece of my heart on Valentines Day, making me realize that as corny and ridiculous as it seems, we came up with one hell of a way to market love.

Cupid, your work here is done.

The Mistress Theory

When someone, who you care about or are close to, does something bad to you there's usually an expectation that you will receive something. Be it an explanation, an apology, or even a headache, you at least want some things to be explained to you. I mean, they did something bad something egregious, something that can't, for the love of reason be explained without cursing to the high heavens and watching the tears roll down your face in the mirror while eating ice cream with chocolate liqueur on top and a glass of straight vodka--the $5.99 kind you find in those run down liquor stores on Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd-- to chase. Well I did one of those egregious things. And the person who deserves an explanation is you. It has been almost exactly a month since the last time I wrote something in this blog. That in itself deserves a condemning, but to put it in greater perspective, it has been almost exactly 20% of the time that I've been in Germany since I've wrote something.

That's right, it's past the six month mark. I'm still ecstatic to be here. I love Germany, the people, the culture, the language (even though I still want to rip my hair out when my brain has to constantly run through a proverbial checklist of things to do quicker than my mouth spits words out), the towns, the proximity to other beautiful European nations, just an overall solid place. But that also means I've been six months away from America. Let's not jump the gun here...I may well be on my way to becoming an expat, but in no way, shape or form am I there yet. The simple truth is, I love America too. I don't know if I've already written about the wife and mistress analogy but it's a fitting one for my life.

America is my wife. I love her, I need her, she has always been there for me; but she's far away and her ever lasting appeal has worn off the longer I spend away from here.

Germany is my mistress. She's fresh, new, exciting, always longing for my attention and welcome to try new things. But like any mistress (like any 22 year old I'm an expert in all things marriage and mistresses.) there are things that she cannot help me to forget.

And now, after 50% of my time here is up, I want to do a type of mid-year preparation for the post-test I'll be taking, it won't be as comprehensive or multifaceted but it'll be a nice little study guide.

So here we go.

The Thing I Miss Most About America

My Car. A 2005 Toyota Camry XLE.

The so called "Silver Bullet," I can't explain exactly what about it I miss so much. The feel? No. The smell? No. The touch of the wheel as my fingers wrap gently around it? Now we're getting on to something. The sound of the engine gently purring as a tap the accelerator with my big toe? Ooooh. How about the freedom of going wherever I want, whenever I want, with whoever I want? Bingo. 

If I had any influence, the sales of
Sweetwater would increase exponentially overnight.

Above all that's what I miss. We're a free-spirited country, America. We don't think about what we can't do, what we shouldn't do, or why we shouldn't do it as much as other countries. I think even if I had access to a car here I would probably not have the same carefree, grab-my-keys-hop-in-the-car-and-drive attitude here. But seriously, I miss how easy it was for me to hop in the car, head to the grocery store and grab a six pack of beer. Not that bad stuff, the stuff I've been trying convince Germans exists in the States...you know, good beer. Sweet Water, Shock Top, Dogfish, yes German beer is good, but the everyday German beer has nothing on a good Sweet Water 420 Pale Ale.

Alas, I digress. I miss my car. Maybe it's in relation to gas prices? Or maybe I simply cannot fathom driving anything other than the Silver Bullet, but there's a huge void in my heart--and don't doubt me it's huge, otherwise it wouldn't be the first thing in this blog post--that cannot be filled in Germany.



Or maybe I'm just terrified to drive on the Autobahn...

The Thing I Will Miss Most About Germany

Münster/myhostfamily/myfriends/potatoes/freshvegetables/snow/readinggermanbooks/pickingfunatrandompeopleonthestreetsforwearingridiculousoutfits/beer/funnyaccents/stupidquestions*/sparklingwater/sexycars/beautifulpeoplewhoareinshape/theabsenceoffastfoodoneverycorner/spiralstaircases/bikelanes/doeners/frankfurt/cologne/münster/munich/hamburg/berlin**/germanmusic/diebundesrepublikdeutschland.

Preeeetty sure that's the one thing I'll miss the most about Germany. It was really hard to decide on just one thing but I nailed it on the head. If you asked me exactly why I would miss...this one thing, I would tell you the answer is simple really. The Mistress Theory.

Oh don't you DARE go away, I've still got a whole 'nother thought to expound upon. This is the consequence of missing a month of blogging. Perhaps you should remind me next time to split my thoughts.

The Mistress Theory (As seen on Cliffipedia)

The Mistress Theory, created in 2013 by world renowned Blogger Extraordinaire Clifford D. Mpare, Jr states that anything second similar concept (e.g. land, person, sport, food) that an individual has positive exposure to will automatically magnify the undesirable aspects of a primary, already well-known concept (e.g. land, person, sport, food). Yet the secondary concept cannot resolve discrepancies between itself and the primary concept leaving it vulnerable to becoming an ancillary.

The concept was created by world renowned Blogger Extraordinaire Clifford D. Mpare, Jr. as he sat in his bed in Münster, Germany during his one year excursion. In particular, Mpare was gauging the merits of his country of origin against the merits of his current location. He noticed a major discrepancy in the things he deemed enjoyable about about the aforementioned country and wanted to examine the phenomenon on a deeper, subsupermetaconscious***  level. It has since then been evaluated and considered for the Nobel Prize.

Unfortunately, Mpare was unable to stake his claim for the concept because he was too busy driving his 2005 Toyota Camry XLE.

FINALLY found a reason to slip some Sotfcore into my Blog! 

*These will certainly be encountered on every face of the earth. I myself ask them at least once a day to keep people guessing.

**I have yet to be to this city. It is just an assumption made by word of mouth.

***This word was created by world renowned Blogger Extraordinaire Clifford D. Mpare, Jr. in 2013 shortly after his Mistress Theory was created.

As Plain as Black & White

Well, I took an extended holiday in literal and physical senses. In the literal sense, I had no desire to blog about anything for about three weeks. To you loyal readers of mine who have been yearning for a blog post from me, have no fear, I'm back on the keyboard. 

In the physical sense, I spent time with my uncle and family in Frankfurt before heading over the border to Hungary to check out Budapest. Now, trust me, I could dedicate a solid three or four blog posts to the beauty and wonder of the historic Hungarian city but that would spoil the interesting phenomenon that I need to touch on now. And trust me, it will be rewarding so please stay tuned. This post will be so long, so detailed, so wonderful that it will make up for my lack of posting. For your convenience I'll break it up into the block form of an essay so that you can easily take a break, check Facebook, eat something, grab a beer, and come back for the next part. 

Es war einmal das Leben...

I. Introduction

For any of you who know me outside of the virtual world, there's one thing that you notice pretty quickly about me, it's something that no matter what I can't avoid divulging to people and of course it's something that defines me as a person. 

I'm black. 

Nooo Way! 

Yeah, I know, shocking, as monumental and ground changing as a "Bruce Wayne is Batman" reveal. But hey, I can't reveal every one of my secrets at once so for now, that's all you get. Patience is a virtue. Now before I digress and this blog post devolves into a stream of consciousness rant about nothing (See: The Blog Post About Nothing) I'll get to the point that I wanted to address. Here I am just casually chilling in the train station after my Eurotrip successfully ended, preparing to grind up for this last couple of weeks of school back home in Münster. I got to the train station a bit early, but it was no biggie, I had already had a brilliant plan in motion: find somewhere to sit, listen to music and read for the project I have to present in a couple of weeks. It was going to be a brilliant and thorough dissecting of "The Duchess of Malfi" so that I could meet with my partner with insight and genius to provide her. 

II. Rising Action

Like some brilliant person (Allen Saunders) at some point in time (1957) said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." So I sat down in a vacant chair, not at all turned away from the vulgar smell of urine and body odor of the homeless man a couple seats beside me. I quickly placed my headphones over my ears and zoned out. Offering a smile to the lady to my right and a friendly nod to Stinky on my left. Then something fairly expected happened, a homeless man came up to me, asked me kindly to hand him the empty water bottle behind him. Of course I obliged. You see, in Germany most plastic bottles have a deposit placed on them, this deposit is included in the price of the bottle (kind of like a tax) and it usually ranges from 0.08 to 0.25 euro (as of 2:48 PM German time this has been edited thanks the wonderful sleuthing skills of my German homie Robo!) . It's a simple incentive to encourage recycling and it seems to work, especially when the homeless see it as a way to earn a couple euros for diligently preserving the world. 

My seemingly unconscious act spurred Stinky on my left to go on a rant about homelessness in Germany and all the opportunities to life a sustainable life without walking from trash can to trash can hoping that someone threw a plastic bottle away (cue the "one man's trash is another man's treasure" analogy RIGHT now.) At this point I zoned out, my headphones blurring the sounds of the German language to the point that they transformed themselves into indiscernible white noise drowned out by the hard bass pumps of Big Boi's Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors. I maybe got through a song and a half before I saw Stinky's eyes fixate on me and as great and brilliant I am at lip reading German, I missed every piece of white noise he directed my way. Confidently, cautiously (in case he was asking for money) and curiously, I removed my headphones and said a simple word with such confidence you might have thought I was a native German, bitte? 

III. Climax

The lady next to me kindly repeated his question. "How many children do Africans have?" 

What? 

My brain acted as quickly as it could and I said simply, "I don't know, what do you think?" she answered with a timely three or four (compared to what she said was a 1.2 for Germany), simply because of the familial responsibilities they are expected to uphold. This lady was old, but that answer was so 1900s. I smiled gently, getting ready to respond before she corrected herself and said "Well of course that's different for different people" The conversation moved quickly into the realm of immigration and all other things but at this point their words were drowning back into white noise. 

I stayed and chatted for another fifteen minutes, they were nice people, well intentioned I believe, but I think I'd had enough of Stinky. Kindly I said my goodbyes and left. 

I barely was away from this first exposure, this first assumption that I knew something about African family childbirth rates because of my skin color before I was approached by a man of my complexion. He smiled gently, shook my hand and asked me if I spoke English. For future reference, Clifford, put on your thickest possible German accent scream something at them, and look at the person like they're crazy. The man, from Nigeria, told me his Spiel, (Cliffsnotes version:  he's from Nigeria, lived in Italy for a couple of years and is now looking for work in Germany.) He asked me to raise money for him, because:

 "I am black and I know the struggles of Africans" 

IV. Falling Action

True Life: I'm Black in Germany

This was like a sick joke. Was I on some kind of reality TV show? How does one possibly respond to this? Well I have a practice: if you ask me for money, after telling me a story about your fleeing to Italy, constantly reiterating that you must be a good person because your Italian citizen passport is only given to "good people" I'm probably not going to give you the money you ask for. And by probably I mean you have a better chance finding a water fountain in Germany (See: Water, Water,Everywhere)

Train, gotta catch it. Bye. 

V. Conclusion 

Now I understand the innocence and naivety of assuming that a dark skinned brother, in Germany, could be from Africa but I cannot express how foreign the feeling is. People here don't know what I am. I have always taken for granted that I am easily identifiable as an African American. Perhaps it's a very silly assumption to have but I have always thought I carried myself in a manner that screamed American. This thought process has since been eschewed, stripped, discredited, in my time in Germany. So many times I have been approached by Africans and spoken to in the mother language of Ghana, so many times have I been asked questions about Africa that I am not qualified to answer. 

It's an interesting enough phenomenon though, the treatment I receive in Germany because of my skin color. No negativity, I've yet to experience anything I'd consider offensive or anything of the sort but it's definitely something that I keep note of on a daily basis. It's something that usually occurs in the most innocent of manners, like the one before, asking if I know something about African fertility habits, or asking a brother for help simply because he's a brother, but it seems to be a wholly different beast. I know I'm a foreigner and I know there are plenty of other foreigners that I encounter every day and that I'm not the only one who's identifiable as a foreigner but it's so different being approached under the assumption that I'm something or that I have a certain understanding of the world. 

Maybe it's the same in the US but I have never thought about it in such a manner, I've never been mistakenly identified as something else than what I self-identified with and now that it happens so frequently it's really made me interested to discover how exactly others think about the issue and what false lenses with which we examine people.

Now i understand the vast majority of Germany is of a lighter complexion than myself and it would be "logical" to assume I'm from a continent that doesn't lay across a massive body of water, but please, before being so upfront, just ask me a simple question and the answer may be shocking for you.