Silverstein, Silbermond, Mondstein, Mondschein

I walked last night to where the sidewalk ends. It's on the eastern way out of town, just beyond the Max-Planck-Institute, just on the pasture-side of Elisen Park. The latter is a shopping center--a legitimate American-style mall which I discovered last week on a walk beyond the borders, out past Lidl to the spot where the bike path turns to gravel. When I found it I was shocked. Who knew that it was there, that 2.5 acres of America on Mecklenburg-Vorpommeranian soil? It was home, but I didn't want it, and I realized that come July, I'm probably going to miss Germany far more than I've been missing America.*

At the same time that I feel pretty at home here, I'm often struck by how un-German my life is. Probably once a day, I'm taken slightly off guard by hearing German. This usually happens within 60 seconds of leaving my apartment and reminds me how much time I spend alone inside my head. If I don't have school and don't have orchestra and don't meet anyone in the kitchen, I probably won't say more than a few sentence of German per day. Today, for example. I've said "hi," "bye," and a couple numbers while counting out my change at the store. But that's it. And unless I've been immersed in German for awhile, I don't normally use it for thinking. My sound of silence is still English.

Interestingly, however, it's not just German in Germany that catches me off guard. In Britain, it was English. I was in a foreign country, so English just didn't seem right. I loved it, though. It's the most amazing feeling to not have to think at all about what you're saying. I could be articulate. I could be witty. I felt like myself, and that's pretty good for morale.

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*As a country and way of life. Missing people is a totally different story.