Home Again, Home Again April 12, 2010

I’ve been living abroad for 5 ½, going on six years now, and it’s interesting how my idea of “home” has changed over the years. Initially, when I first moved to Scotland, home was the US and Indiana. And then slowly over the years, as my possessions overseas grew along with my relationships, home somehow also became Edinburgh. Now that the Mr.  and I have moved to Germany, the idea of home has become even more complicated. Can someone have three “homes”?

Indiana will always be one of my homes as long as I have family there. And in some ways, I still feel like Edinburgh is home, too. I suppose that feeling will probably fade the longer we are gone, but it was the city where I spent the majority of my adult life working and living until this point. And now Würzburg is home. Sort of. Some might argue it’s our only home as it’s where the Mr.”s job is, and although 95% of our stuff is in storage somewhere 50 km away at the moment, it’s where the majority of our possessions are kept. But what defines a home? Is it where your job and things are located? Or is it where your friends and family are? For now, I’m finding it a little difficult to think of Würzburg as home since we’re living a bit like nomads and we have no friends or family here. And yet, when we returned from Italy on Tuesday, it did feel in a way like we were coming home.

Living abroad or traveling, it’s not uncommon to be asked, “Where are you from?” as soon as it’s clear you’re not local. The response used to be that I’m from the US, the Mr. is from Germany and we live in Scotland. Now that we’re living in Germany and the Mr. is German we’ll probably get asked that question less, but somehow I feel torn when explaining where I’m from. Although I was born and raised in the US, I somehow also want to acknowledge that I’ve lived in Scotland for the last 5 ½ years and not the US. True, 5 1/2 years is not that long to live away from the US, and yet my outlook on life and the way I see the world has undoubtedly also been shaped by my experiences living in the UK. And yet to explain all this to someone who probably just wants a simple answer is not really possible.

Italy was beautiful. Although I was a bit worried about driving on the Autobahn to get there, once we got past Munich and into Austria it was less crazy. Thankfully Austria is a very sensible country with speed restrictions in place. Limone was absolutely gorgeous nestled in the mountains on Lake Garda and I couldn’t believe that it was actually as pretty as the images on the internet. Our hotel was very nice and very affordable considering the amazing views you get of the lake. Someday I’ll add photos I took of our room and the grounds. I have a feeling it’s probably pretty packed with guests in the summer, but we practically had it to ourselves which made it really peaceful and relaxing. The Mr. went swimming in the indoor pool every day and he had it to himself each time.  I wish I could say we had sunshine and blue skies every day we were there, but we only had two days of really good weather and one day that was absolutely dismal. We spent our time exploring a few of the towns around Lake Garda and also drove to Verona. We checked out “Juliet’s balcony,” or at least the balcony of a home that supposedly belonged to the Capulet family.

Casa di Giulietta Verona

It was tourist trap in many respects, but still fun to visit and the Mr. snapped a photo of me on the balcony (not me in the photo, however…I’m striking a dreamy Juliet pose, I believe!)  Our stay in Italy finished, we drove back to Germany to the country inn near Ulm where the Mr.’s family gathers each year for Easter. I enjoyed seeing his family, but somehow I always find it a little exhausting. The family meets over the course of three days, which is nice but is longer than any extended family gathering I’ve ever attended. Because they spend so much time together over these three days, I find myself getting frustrated and feeling a little isolated by the end as most of the conversation is obviously in German. It has gotten better as I can now understand key words here and there so I can often get a basic idea of what’s being discussed, but three days is still a long time to not really be part of the conversations happening. I hope that by next year I will have taken an intensive language class and the weekend will be more enjoyable.

And now we’re back in Würzburg. Well, Höchberg to be specific. Mia meowed quite a bit the evening we picked her up from the cat hotel and a little the next morning, but she seems to be back to normal. The search for a flat or house continues. While we were away, we missed out on a couple of things that potentially could have been good, but now we simply have to be very focused and not miss any other opportunities. Who knows…maybe “home” will feel more like home once we have a structural one of our own.

Arrivederci, Germany! March 26, 2010

Well, for five nights, anyway =)

Back before we moved to Germany, we had planned to do a short vacation in Italy in April. We figured would have been living in our new flat for more than a month at that point, so in theory the kitchen would have been delivered and installed, boxes would have been unpacked, etc. When we lost the flat,* however, the idea of going away pretty much went out the window as our new priority on arrival would be to find a flat or house ASAP. The likelihood of being able to go to Italy suddenly looked slim.

Well, almost a month down the road we still don’t have a place to call home. We’re going to see a place tomorrow that is located on a street with a very interesting name. It has lots of positive things going for it, but it’s on the more affordable side and we haven’t seen any pictures yet so I’m not holding my breath. I’ll blog about it either way – whether we take it or not – as it’s really too good an opportunity to pass up telling you all about it.  In some ways, it still seems like a bad idea to pack up and go anywhere as our first priority really should be checking every day for new property listings and immediately trying to set up a viewing for anything promising. On the other hand, we’re being kicked out of our holiday let this weekend as the owners need to honor a previous booking so perhaps that’s the excuse we needed….

Here’s the plan: the cat goes into the “cat hotel” tomorrow and will be there for about a week-and-a-half. She was there two weeks ago for three days, and although she came back a little smelly she didn’t seem to be irreparably damaged by the experience. She did get an upset tummy that apparently resulted in a bit of mess on her backside (and they gave her a bath), but it was likely caused by flea medicine she was licking off. That being said, this move has been tough on her and I feel guilty for inflicting further trauma. She’s scared of strangers now, for example. She used to be confident and friendly towards anyone who visited our flat, and now she hides when the owners from upstairs come in. So I know that us hauling her away in her carrier and then leaving her there will be hard.  On all of us. And this time it will be for much, much longer, which of course we can’t explain to her. They don’t understand people language, and it sucks.

Still, we’re looking forward to a “mini vacation” on Lake Garda. I’ve only been to Rome, and have longed for quite some time to see more of Italy. We’re staying in a small town called Limone, in what looks to be a fairly nice hotel with great views.

Limone on Lake Garda

After spending five days in Italy, we’ll drive back to Germany to the little town near Ulm where the Mr.”s family gathers each year for Easter. After Easter weekend, it’s back to Würzburg and most likely, back to the search for a place to call home.

*See my first post, “Hell Might Be Freezing Over,” for details on this delightful experience.