The Hamburg Harbor at night

New Years Eve 2012 fireworks

New Year Celebration

I love watching and shooting fireworks, but it doesn’t have the same effect in December. Yet fireworks just go along with New Years in Germany. It is a pretty sight to see bright balls of color exploding above a city and reminds me of driving around the Missouri country side on the evening of July 4th, but without the same excitement I experienced back then.

Shooting photos of fireworks is something I wish I was better at. It took me several shots to get the exposure close to correct. Then I had problems with timing the picture to the maximum point of the burst. Maybe on my next trip to the US I should practice since shooting fireworks is not usually prohibited in Missouri.

A sunrise in Denmark

North Sea coast in Denmark

A field in Denmark

Denmark

One of my desires for 2012 is to see a little more of Europe than northern Germany. In January we ventured to the Danish coast for a week to get away from everyday life. This was my first trip to another European country since moving here. Before leaving I wondered how being in another country might be. Physically traveling from one country to another is not much different than going from one Midwestern state to another one. There is a road sign welcoming you to another place and the road just continues on to where you want to go. Cultural steps into this situation though and every place is a little different. Even between German states you find differences you wouldn’t find going between Missouri and Iowa.

Speaking of the Midwest, Denmark reminds me a lot of Illinois. Even Anni thought so. During one of our visits to a nearby city Anni commented that if the houses were made of wood we could be driving through Illinois.

Something very unlike Illinois or even Germany was using Danish Krone. I thought most EU countries used the Euro and did not bother looking up a conversion rate before going to Denmark. After unloading the car our next stop was to an ATM for some cash before buying groceries. Seeing prices of 40, 50, or 60 Krone and up was a little unsettling at first. Even after discovering 1 Krone is worth around .13 cents Euro (.17 cents USD) it still seemed strange.

Sailing ships on the Elbe river near Hamburg.

One of these days I should count the number of national holidays in Germany.  I am pretty sure it surpasses the United States.  Germans seem to love a good vacation and every German state has its own additional holidays on top of the standard set of national ones.  Unfortunately for me Hamburg has fewer holidays than other states.  Areas with strong ties to the catholic church have a tendency to be a little more celebratory.

Today is German Unity Day which celebrates the reunification of Germany in 1990.  Kind of amazing that East and West Germany have only been reunited for 21 years.  I remember watching the fall of the Berlin wall on TV as a kid.  That seems so long ago, and now I live in a country that is divided no more.  I should spend some time this week asking people what reunification means to them.  I wonder how different a perspective people from the former Germany’s have.  I know that still today there are economic problems in the former East.  While it is better than in previous years, the effects are still felt.

What Unity Day means for me is my first work “holiday”.  I only realized the office was closed a couple weeks before.  I should put the national holidays on my calendar so I do not forget them.  My mind is still centered around American holidays.  I guess the next shared holiday is Christmas.  Since Germany does not celebrate Thanksgiving and Halloween does not include a free day from work.

My first day is coming soon and I am a little bit nervous.  No, not about the technological aspects of the job I am a little unfamiliar with.  I have always picked up technology easily enough.  I am mostly nervous about working in an office with people who speak German natively.  While my German has greatly improved over the last couple of months I would say it is far from good.  Yes, everyday I follow conversation a little bit better.  And there are topics I can speak about relatively well in German, but there is still quite a few which perplex me.  I guess I am at that moment where German is starting to “click” and be awkward at the same time.  Something I hope will pass quickly once I start spending the majority of my time around native German speakers.  And a situation I hope everyone can overlook.

Even though I am nervous, I am also excited too.  This is a sign my life is returning to normal again.  That my decisions up until now were not just some passing fancy that I was to stubbron to recongize.  As Pinocchio might say, “I am a real boy”.  Meaning, what I was afraid was not true really is true.  That I was and am able to pick up my life in one culture and move myself into another.  Yes, I still have a long way to go, but that is just a part of life.  We never truly arrive at our final destionation.  We just create new goals and challenges for ourselves to overcome.  It is still good to reach those milestones along the way though.

Milestone (almost) reached…

P.S. I appologize for any potentional spelling mistakes/errors.  I am using a German computer which does not have an English spellchecker.  I will proof this entry once I am back at my own computer.

Thanks, Matt