My first introduction to Germany was a wonderful Christmas in 2000. Although our meeting was brief before we hit the Autobahn to Austria for my first white Christmas, I was in-love with Frankfurt am Main. True, she was at her best, all her buildings where twinkling with Christmas cheer and the city square was buzzing with people enjoying traditional Gluhwein and Lebkuchen at the annual Christmas Market.
I gushed and reminisced about our brief encounter until my German Father-in-Law decided I should go back and have a proper visit and see the city without it’s lights and cheer and get a ‘real’ perspective on the country. I flew out two years later to stay with my aunt-in-law and her decision to take me to Berlin just increased my love for this strange and beautiful country. I was mesmerised! Three weeks of travelling the Rhine, seeing the Castle of Heidelburg, riding bicycles in the forests and walking the streets of Frankfurt am Main, I returned home to South Africa with a different perspective.
I have had the wonderful opportunity of taking my parents with me on my next trip to Germany and they loved it as much as I do. I would gush about how I would love to live there, how I think it is such a progressive country who picked itself out of it’s disgrace and ashes in the 1940’s and is now counted by the world as one of it’s equals.
If you have read any of my past posts you will pick up that there is a thread of dissatisfaction that I have with my country. Don’t get me wrong I love my country and it’s people but politics can bring a country to it’s knees. Hubby is talking of going back to Germany for possible interviews with companies who will hire a primarily English speaker although he is attending German lessons to ‘reconnect’ with his ancestral mother tongue. He is serious and I am petrified.
I am angry at myself for whinging! I want to shout at myself and say “This is what you wished for! You can’t stay here in South Africa and whine about it! The decision is simple if you don’t like it and not going to be positive for your county and it’s people then you need to leave!” This journey is exhausting and the mental roundabout is frustrating.
Sigh! As the cliched saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for….”
Twaddle & Twak 