Dreaming and Waking

The good ladies of the Schloss hosted a "Bier und Brez'n" to celebrate the start of the Easter holiday. Rachel and I waited impatiently for 4:15 to roll around to start the drinking after our kids had left the classroom. We walked down there, put our bags and coats down by everyone else's in true school fashion. All in a row against the wall of the Middle School auditorium and found our way to the kegs of Augustiner outside, got a pretzel and Obazter (a type of spiced cream cheese) and joined in the conversations of our colleagues. I started talking with Luke about his day and his stress over having lost his passport and the fact that he was catching a flight for Amsterdam the following morning. We had a few beers as teachers came and went, drank and ate. We pushed our departure time back more and more and finally decided to catch the 6:00 bus to the train station. We grabbed a few beers for the road (I took a mug as well) and head for the bus stop. We got home and Luke frantically searched for his passport. After a few stressful minutes, he found it and exalted his good fortune by announcing that he was going to buy me dinner and drinks, anywhere I wanted. We went to a great vegetarian restaurant, had dinner drinks and desert (tiramisu for me and mango creme brule for him) one of the best meals I've had in Munich. We were buzzed with the excitement of the holiday. We decided to go see a movie. We got back to the apartment, and found that There Will Be Blood was playing at my favorite theater in Munich, the Lichtspiele. We went back out to get on the train. We walked Hauptbahnhof and got off at Rosenheimerplatz. After walking around for a while, and going on my memory of the one time I had been there before, I finally broke down and asked in German where was the theater. I got only blank stares and muddled Denglisch directions. We finally found the theater, bought beers and sweet popcorn and walked into the dark, small theater. The movie was incredible. Made better by our buzzing, beer and popcorn. We laughed through the whole movie, even when no one else got it. We walked out of the theater screaming praises for the film, not necessarily shared by the Germans who watched it with us. We got back to Hauptbahnhof, still excited. I suggested more beers and Cafe Kosmos. Great idea! We met tons of cool people and I spoke almost exclusively in German. Conversational stuff...where are you from, what are you doing here, how do you like it, etc. I felt really good after getting complements on my German and actually being able to understand what everyone was saying, and even engaging someone in German without them switching over automatically to perfect English. The two girls we were talking to were cool, but after a while I told Luke we should go and after some coaxing, he came with me. He was catching a flight to Amsterdam in like 6 hours. We came back, I called my brother to talk about the movie and I went to bed. I felt good, I felt free. I felt like I was home and that living in Germany was not a challenge. It was just life and you can communicate with people if you want to and you can go see a movie like you could in the States and that this should never end. This utopian dream world or Munich as an American in modern times.

The next day, Good Friday, I woke up late and eventually made my way to my favorite coffee shop, walking through the freezing drizzle. I ordered a Mocha and a Blueberry muffin in German and was understood the first time through. Proud of myself that I communicated what I wanted and had great service with a smile on my face, I sat down, did a few crossword puzzles and read a little bit observing the people walking through the city in the rain, and felt comfortable in warm inside. I ordered a coffee to go and walked home. I heard groups of American tourists talking about learning their walks back to their hotels and laughed at the "likes" and "totallys" interspersed in their conversations. I felt for an instant that I should say, "Hey, you're American too, what's up? What are you, like, doing in Munich. Do you want to, like, get a beer?" But I kept walking letting them think that I was a normal born and raised resident of Munich out for a cup of coffee on my holiday. I wasn't born and raised here, but I still feel a part of this city. When I first got here, I was ashamed of being American. Not knowing the language and being clueless to the attitudes and customs of the city. But today, walking around in the shut down city, with the confidence to order coffee, start conversations with strangers and feel good about being American, living abroad, contributing to the city, I felt good. I felt home. I got an e-mail with a link to pictures of the house I might live in when I get home. Reality smacks me in the face and I'm reminded that this isn't forever, nothing is forever. As Reid told me, change is the only constant. Don't get used to this, buddy, cause you'll always wake up from your dreams eventually and you can only hope that you'll have that dream again because you can't make it last forever. Today, I had the first feelings of regret that I was going home and not staying another year. I can't make the dream last forever, but I could make it last another year. But here I am, living between sleeping and waking while the future approaches. That's okay for now. I rest assured knowing that I have people that love me on two continents now, that I have people to talk to when I need them, that people need me, that the future is wide open, that ordering coffee here makes me feel happy and that I've accomplished something, that music transports me to different times and places and makes me smile, that I can drink coffee and read on the train ride to work and all I see is poetry and future chapters in books unwritten, that my grandfather was here 60 years ago making life better for the world and that the route I take to get to the coffee shop is the route that he took when Munich was first liberated, that he stood in Marienplatz listening to the national anthem blasting while American and British soldiers stood with tears in their eyes and a world-wide horror was ended. I walk to get my coffee as tourists stand amazed, taking pictures of the Neues Rathaus and the Frauenkirche. If this is a dream, please don't wake me and if this is life, I never want to go to sleep.