“Steph! STEPH! I NEED A NEW TOWEL!!” Mark’s voice jarred me awake. Groggy, I peeked into the bathroom. “There was a BAT in my TOWEL!” Wide awake now, I leaned over the tub, and, sure enough, there was a small black little body on the floor of the tub about the size of my palm. I ran out to put my glasses on and fetch Mark a new towel. Apparently during the night, our winged friend decided to roost in Mark’s bathsheet that was hanging by the bathroom window that was cracked open to luft.

While I rummaged,  Mark had tried to wrap the bat in toilet paper to toss the carcass out the window. Only, it wasn’t a carcass. It was very much still alive – it was probably sleeping and fell, stunned, when Mark grabbed his towel. The bat flew away, and we gained a new worry about life in Germany.

Will We or Won’t We?

It will be six months for us in Germany come November. Between not knowing if the current administration was going to fund our move or not and the crazy amount of paperwork frustratingly needed to be done by hand, settling into Germany has been an annoying process compared to other countries I’ve moved to. Yet, we made it!

And there are definitely some bright spots. We somehow lucked out in securing our first choice of apartments and received our household goods shipment from the port of Baltimore months earlier than expected.

This blog post is  mostly a catch-up and glimpse into our first impressions of Germany.

Settling into Wiesbaden

“Wiesbaden started off as a spa town for its natural hotsprings in Roman times, and it’s still riding that high.”

-Mark

We lived at the Hilton in Mainz for a good month as our temp housing before securing our apartment in Wiesbaden. We did have other temp housing lined up, but that’s a story for another day (involving amateur dog breeding of all things). About a twenty minute drive west of Frankfurt, across the river from Mainz, Wiesbaden is one of the oldest spa towns in Europe dating back to the Romans. Its name translates to “Meadow Baths” with 15 mineral springs in its city center.

Wiesbaden is famous as well for its colonial Prussian architecture, mainly because only twenty percent of the city was bombed during WWII. Our new apartment is a great example. Built in 1900, the ceilings are about 14 feet high with gorgeous crown molding. What’s more, it has a somewhat rare extra guest bath and rarer still, a closet. The best part is that we are a fifteen-minute walk away from the train station with a grocery store literally across the street. Additionally, we didn’t need to buy new shelving and counters for the kitchen—lucky, as we learned that a common practice in Germany is to take them with you when you move!

Recycling

Learning the ropes of recycling has been a bit daunting. Recycling is required. It reminds me of when I lived in DC for grad school and my building received a letter from our landlord saying they would look through our trash and find our mail and our address if we did not recycle. German recycling is complicated. One must separate between plastic, paper, biodegradable, etc. Even Styrofoam is recycled! Glass is a pain where you must go out and find specific glass recycling spots, and it is done by color. I do love pfanding, though – where you can take back plastic bottles a store sells in return for cash back at the store. The machine is fun to use!

There’s a Festival Somewhere Every Weekend

We live smack dab in Riesling country and there is no avoiding it (see my last post on Kloster Eberbach here). Mark and I, despite a penchant for beer, are slowly adjusting to the prevalence (and affordability of wine) here.

One of my American colleagues told me she initially expected festivals to be like Coachella or something. From my experience so far, they tend to have random food trucks and long tables for people to drink and hang out. They do often have live music, though.

We attended the local WineFest in September, which featured Germany’s longest wine bar, meant to empty out the cellars of nearby wineries for new stock.

German Efficiency is a Lie

To be honest, I was expecting Germany to be a punctual rule-follower’s utopia before we moved here. I learned that buses and trains are constantly late. People jaywalk, and I have never had to fill out so much paperwork by hand and be told to carry around hard copies-just in case.

In some ways it feels as if we are going back to pre-internet times. Even going to the doctors, I was told I must physically pick up a written prescription at the doctor’s during work hours, which frustratingly happens to also be my work hours. Sure, many Germans only work three days a week, making it no big deal for them, but for me it’s super inconvenient.

Lüften

This cultural phenomenon is actually written into our lease! What is lufting? It is the act of opening a window to air out the apartment at least twice a day for ten minutes to prevent mold. Many places in Germany lack AC, so to combat mold, they require people to ventilate the rooms with fresh air from outside. I do like the nifty window attachments that can open a window multiple ways and reduce light to nil (rulaten) if you want a pitch black room.

The lack of AC made for a miserably hot summer, although luckily humidity is better than Maryland. Unfortunately people shower less here, so you can imagine smells get pretty ripe. This confuses me as I don’t get why more people don’t wear deodorant. That’s probably one of the hardest things I’m struggling with here, having grown up in a culture where it’s shameful to inconvenience others with your body odor. This makes it super hard when buses are cramped and you have to stand in close proximity to twenty plus sweaty, smelly bodies. It’s only a bit gag inducing.

Grocery Shopping

I remember my high school AP government teacher once shared how sociologists found the reason Walmart didn’t initially do well in Germany was because the Germans buy just what they need for the day (shoutout to Mrs. Virden!). It’s true! If you grab more than a few items, expect some angry stares and multiple people asking if they can cut me in line. Germans tend to buy just two or three things that they need for that day.

Food

Much of the food is very brown, but very tasty! Bread is a fascinating cultural aspect here. With over 3,000 kinds of bread (bread culture here is UNESCO protected), it is not surprising how good it is. We have also yet to find a sausage we didn’t like. On top of this, I have discovered pre-marinated meats with tomato-based sauces tend to have surprising spices like nutmeg or anise. On another note, I have found that most of the Asian restaurants around are owned by Vietnamese who drown everything in mint.

Doing Laundry Takes Forever

I am still surprised at how long laundry takes here compared to the states! The machines are small and designed to be extremely, unbelievably, inconveniently power-efficient. How is a two plus hour cycle for one load more efficient than one that takes much less beats me. I understand many people here live without dryers, but it’s a pain to wait for things to dry. Plus, they come out hard, pilling, and stiff, which takes me back to my first year in China in 2010 doing laundry by hand. No thanks. Our dryer isn’t super-fast, either, but it’s a heat pump dryer that gets things mostly soft and dry.

Bugs and Invasive Parrots

Silverfish were not on my bingo cards for Germany! I have seen more silverfish and spiders since I have been here than I have in my entire life. When we moved in, they were on the walls, the floors, in the planters outside. Now, we have big daddy long legs in random corners and less silverfish (we hope there is a correlation). Moreover, there is the occasional gigantic wolf spider, but we prefer not to talk about those.

One of the most surprising (and surprisingly ugly sounding) things we first noticed about Wiesbaden were the wild green parakeets roaming around. Initially, we assumed, like many others new to the area, that these birds were someone’s escaped pets. However, according to the Wiesbaden city website, these parrots flew over from Asia sometime in the 1970s and have stayed ever since.

On a separate page, Germans love their dogs – and I do mean LOVE dogs. They are welcome just about everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs, too, but I am sadly allergic to them.

Onward

All in all, it’s been a neat adventure thus far, especially now that we have a routine going and some free time. Oh man, though, having bright sunlight outside at 10pm when we first moved here was jarring. Now with it being Fall, sunset is happening earlier and earlier with it to eventually happen at 4pm.

We love it! Wiesbaden does not feel so foreign in that we have had multiple family members (mine and Mark’s) who have had prior experience living about an hour away at Ramstein and are able to give us loads of advice. What I particularly like is that although there are US bases nearby, Wiesbaden is surprisingly not highly Americanized. Another plus, most of the people we interact with come at us using German first. This has been helpful and highly motivating since we do want to learn more of the language.

We are lucky to have had a few family members and friends already visit. Mark’s former colleague, EK stopped into Mainz back in May her way home to Luxembourg from Korea. Mark’s parents came in June and were super helpful in aiding us to unpack, hang up artwork, build and rearrange furniture, and explore.

In August, I visited Meagan, one of my best friends, in Kiel for her baby shower, and in September, we took our first trip across Europe to Prague for my birthday!

As of mid-October, we are now mostly unpacked, and our apartment is feeling pretty festive as we recently hung up our Fall decor. Mark is working diligently on a new Gundam diorama for a competition (good luck, Mark!!), and I am slowly parsing through the many pictures I took when we first moved here. We are looking forward to more adventures, especially having Mark’s family over for Thanksgiving!

As I have heard everyone say on the daily here, “Ciao!”

❤ Steph