Six

It's ladies night here in Frankfurt, or at least in our apartment. Björn is the best man at a friend's wedding in a few weeks, and tonight it's bachelor night. They've just left, all hepped up on beer and youthful whimsy. Maybe Lilly and I will give each other facials and talk about boys we like.

I was enjoying another round of LastFM at work the other day when "Flowers in the Window" by Travis came on, which gave me a weird flashback to my year as an exchange student in Giessen, a town north of Frankfurt. That was back in 2000, when my German was miserable and my drinking habits even worse — or better, depending on your point of view. I had already spent almost a year in Germany in 1998-99, so I didn't participate in the two-week orientation thing before the semester started. Instead, I spent those days boozing it up and getting high with the friends I knew I probably wouldn't see again for a while. There are some of them I haven't seen since then, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, as fun as those last days were, and the drive to New York City and the five days spent with a certain Kansan whom I subsequently missed sorely the first few months in Germany, it did have a side effect — I was the outsider amongst the other exchange students. Which sucked at first, but it forced me to make friends with what I considered to be real students, the Germans. Jan, for example, who let me know on the first day of classes that my FC Hansa Rostock notebook was unacceptable, as that soccer club is apparently only for right-wing Nazis and what-have-so. So so. That was one of the first of many mistakes I was to make here in this country that is not my own. And in my defense I have to say that I only bought them because they were five for 5 marks. Jan is still a friend of mine, and now a very good friend of my husband's as well. Jan is a guy, by the way, lest you be thinking of Jan Brady.

Anyway, at the beginning of my exchange year, I spent a lot of time in my dorm room listing to Travis' album The Invisible Band and David Gray's White Ladder. By the time I figured out I could listen to NPR thanks to the Americans stationed in Giessen, I had begun to feel at home and had made some friends. My teary phone calls to friends back home became fewer as well.

And here we are, eight years later, and I'm married to the best husband ever, have a dog who only listens to German commands and in December I will be a mother — to a half-German kid. I can't say that I planned it this way, but it's a hell of a lot better than what I had in mind back when I was 22.