simplicity

This past weekend I saddled up and did a little trip to the center of Germany. My former co-worker from Eglin, Danyel, came to Aachen, picked me up and we then spent the weekend at her place. Danyel has a little girl, Serenity, and we met her friend at Bitburg Air Base and from there went to the city of Trier. Trier is a city of about 80k, and although I was there at night could tell how beautiful it was. Wikipedia tells me that it was founded around the time of Christ. However, the best part of Trier was the amazing sushi restaurant that we went to. An all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant which sends sushi around on this small little conveyor belt and you just pick off the tantalizingnesses that is! It was great.

I went to the Air Base at Ramstein and I had another slight identity crisis. Next month marks the end of my 22 year career as a military child. I have mix feelings about this. As it is, I haven't really been a military kid since 2003 and after my dad died I became even less of one. Mom moved to Ohio, I was at Florida State and for the longest time the only thing I did with the military was get my insurance renewed and talk to other military kids. So why now am I having this slight panic? I think its part of my childhood identity and being an Air Force brat certainly shaped part of who I am as a person. My first job, first friends, my entire childhood and mostly my Father's identity was also intertwined with his career in the Air Force. This is part of growing up I suppose, freaking out about getting older, being more independent and saying goodbye to that part of our lives that we know the most.

While at the base, I also realized how different I am now and how different my life has become. I don't share that military lifestyle, etc. It was so strange, I was in Germany, paying in dollars, speaking in English and watching poorly dressed American's shop. The BX alone was strange as I have been in Germany long enough to get used to not having one central place to shop. As much I would like to be associated with this little slice of America, I just don't think its for me anymore. I guess to some extent it will always be part of me, but I'm not sure. I think this is just part of the greater problem of growing up, changing friends, life, end of my university life and not sure what to expect next. I guess I'm good though for the next two years as I got my work and residence visas yesterday.

On the way home from the base, I rented a car. The class above the cheapest class of car (the cheapest one with GPS-which I need here) was a Mercedes A class. It was beautiful. I was the first person to drive this puppy. It had 3km on it when I started the car. I will never buy a car that is not in a similar class again. So easy to drive and the gas mileage was great. I took the Benz on the autobahn and cruised around at 130mph. It was fantastic.

Life is progressing here. I am excited though to go home for the Christmas break. It will be nice to see my family and my baby niece. And, I just miss my family. I miss my friends too and that is mostly natural. Unfortunately I feel that in the two years that I'll be in Germany I will have lost a few of them, even those that I've been friends with for several years. I am not the type of person who can go a year without talking to you and then just magically catch up ( I mean, I can but I don't like to do that). I need from time to time an email, a phone call. I live in Germany, not Rwanda. Its not hard to get a hold of me. I'm tired of investing into people and not getting any investment in return. Its disheartening. Still trying to meet people in Aachen (esp outside of the office) and thats kind of at a slow down right now, but I'm working on it. Otherwise my colleagues are great, we get along splendidly, often having lunch and chatting. However, at the end of the day, I'm still lonely. Which is not a feeling I particularly enjoy.

I miss academia, Target and spontaneous lunches with friends. Oh, and Bullwinkle's too.