There’s a lot of challenges that living in a new city brings. First, there’s the routine or “groove” that one must settle into involving knowing where to get groceries from, what groceries I can buy, how the washing machine works, how the inner-city tram works, where to go to buy new clothes, getting used to a new kitchen, and so on. It can be quite a headache.

Not only that, but this headache can be much further exacerbated when all this is thrust upon someone in a different language. Not only do you feel the creeping, tense feeling of those ‘sniffing out’ the foreigner in you, but you become a bit conscious about your limited ability to speak which, at the same time, further limits your ability to resolve any and all sort of conflicts you come across.

For instance, once I went to the supermarket and thought I had enough money to cover what I had. I even checked the prices and estimated in my head. It seemed like I would just have enough. Cheese, juice, water, gnocchi, apples, butter…yep, pretty sure I had enough. I casually waited in the line until it was my turn to pay for my things.

“Zehn-achtzig, bitte”

What? 10.80 EU? That’s more than I anticipated..

“Entschuldigung, ich habe nur..uhh…”

By this time I knew I needed only 2 cents. Yeah. Two. Zwei. I began to panic. I didn’t have two cents to buy all my items. And somehow they were more expensive! It didn’t make sense. I gazed back at the line of people behind me. Great. Eight people in line being held up by the foreigner who didn’t know how to give the bad news of not having two cents to pay for his groceries at the store.

After a few moments of frustration and silence, the cashier asked the man behind me if he had two cents. In a very cold and serious manner, gazing right through me, he offered me two cents. I quickly thanked him, packed my stuff in the bag, and headed out.

I kept thinking of all the jokes that people could’ve said about the American who didn’t have enough money at the supermarket. Yes, America, known around the world as the center of ‘capitalism’ and eternal champion of ‘globalization’…yet an American comes into a store in Germany and doesn’t have enough money. How could an American never have enough money on him for simple necessities as groceries? Oh, the irony! The ridicule! It would never end!

As for the mystery of how the price of all my items went up, I ended up discovering that Germany, like the US, has a recycling program. You pay a little extra on top of items that come in plastic or glass (Californians know it as CRV). Well, I ended up buying juice and water that each had a “pfand” of 25 cents. Yet, in the store, the price shows what it costs BEFORE you add the “pfand.” Even small things like this: how Germany handles recycling and advertising prices of recyclable items can create such confusion. At any rate, if one chooses to live in a foreign country for a while, these sorts of things are expected to arise and make life not only a little awkward, but yes, even embarrassing at times.

But even something as simple as the supermarket, even if you’ve been there five, ten, or possibly even a hundred times, can still be a learning experience if you’re a foreigner. In Germany, you bring bottles and plastic bottles marked with the “pfand” symbol on them and take them to the machine usually located in the back of the supermarket. Then, you insert them into the machine which scans them, and after you are done you get a receipt with the amount that you will earn back from recycling. Ingenious, yeah? No need to take it to the recycling plant or let the garbage men get it for you. You get your money back right then and there.

Now, while this may seem all easy, how and when you get your money back is a little different than how I thought. When you buy groceries from the store, you must first present your receipt from the recycle machine so the woman can factor in how much less your groceries are. You cannot get your money after the fact because then you will ‘hold up the line’. Or, at least what I had somewhat been told when I went through the checkout line that time.

While these things may not seem like adventures back home, they are kind of adventures in their own right when being a foreigner. In mathematics, one’s “misunderstanding” index inadvertently escalates via Murphy’s Law in direct proportion to one’s ‘foreign’ variable. However, time and time again others may get upset or throw a fit or possibly even mutter something unfavorably towards you. Yet, at the same time, it is a humbling experience that makes you realize all the other times that you antagonized or got upset at someone else back home for these same exact types of misunderstandings.

And yes, an American who doesn’t have enough money to pay for items in a store. Maybe I should’ve asked if they took ‘credit’ instead!

I arrived in my new flat, just above the one I was staying in for the first week here in Germany. I hadn’t yet brought my stuff up yet as I wanted to meet the new roommates I would be living with, and to also get to know them a little bit. As it turned out, they had friends over and everyone had been drinking. People were piled into the kitchen, sitting in seats surrounding the kitchen table with beer, cigarettes, and pop music playing. People talking, laughing, drinking, and smoking. And looking outside from the lively yet dimly lit kitchen, a storm was raging. The wind was howling, the rain was pouring, and intermittent lightning and thunder could be seen outside the windows. I hadn’t seen a storm this bad since I was 9 years old. 

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So, I finally had a place to stay for a while until I could get settled. Matthias, Eva and the other roommates were generous enough to provide accommodations until I found my own room. I would soon discover, however, that three months of studying German would not nearly help me talk to and understand my roommates during this time. And still recuperating from the ‘shock’ that comes with being in a new and foreign country made it even worse. 

But the room I stayed in the first night outside of the hostel was incredible. 

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After three nights, my time in the hostel was up. I packed all my belongings into the gigantic suitcase and set on foot towards Paulusviertel, just a little northwest of the hostel. I was to head out to meet Matthias and his girlfriend Eva. I had never met them before, but had contacted Matthias and introduced myself via Facebook through a mutual friend. Out of his kindness, he offered me a place to stay until I could find a place to settle.

I went downstairs to return my key and saw two younger college-aged girls sitting and also waiting in the office with musical instruments in black padded bags. Instead of awkwardly standing next to them (the office was small), I thought about walking around the hostel until the woman behind the counter came back. However, one of the girls already saw me walk towards them and looked over. I couldn’t turn back now.

“Wie lange warten Sie?”

The girl paused for a second, cocked her head slightly, and squinted her gaze towards me. She knew I was not from around here.

“fünf minuten”

We all waited a little longer, and finally the woman came. She helped the two girls first, giving them a key and then proceeded to help me. I collected my 5 Euro deposit, took a receipt, and was on my way.

I had time to kill before Matthias would be home. So I walked by the University, bags in tow.

I stopped by a cafe to open a book and read, work on German, and relax. I couldn’t think of what else to do as I had these bags with me. And they weighed so much. And it was hot out. So, there I sat. I figured that, for some reason, if I looked like I was practicing German, and told them a little about my story of how I came here, where I came from, what I’m planning to do here, and so on…that they would instead listen to me rather than kick me out.

An hour passed and the cafe was still dead. I figured that I couldn’t keep ordering coffee and staying in there, so I decided to move on. I went up to the bar area and talked with both of them: an authoritative-looking middle-aged woman just shy of her hair graying and a mild-mannered, younger blonde-haired girl who looked to be just about my age. I told them a little bit about my story, how I plan to teach here, learn German and live here for a year. When I started to pay, I then tried to ask them about tip. They all looked at each other. No one could understand. I stood there with money in my hand.

“Uh…’tip’?”  asked the younger blonde.

There they stood, baffled. I smirked a little and tried to explain with gestures. Still not getting anywhere. Another co-worker came out of the back, and the younger blonde asked her. She only gave her a shrug. There was no way I could explain this. And what an awkward thing to ‘ask’ a waitress about: how to tip.

After a few minutes of confusion, I was able to muster up enough German for them to understand.

5 bis 10 prozent.

I then looked at the cash in my hand, and dropped an extra Euro on the table, exclaiming “Ah, danke schön!” We all looked at each other and laughed. 

As it was nice out, I walked to a nearby park bench that sat near the cafe and opened up my German vocabulary book. I had hours to kill, what better way to kill it then to drill down on some German? Anyways, before I knew it, it would be time to move again. The day felt long, I had to carry my whole life with me everywhere. All sixty pounds or so of it.

After a few hours, it was on to Matthias’s place. He had given me the directions to his place, as well as the names on the doorbell. On the map, Paulusviertel didn’t look to far away. I was to go to Humboldtstrasse 40.

The tricky part with streets here in the Paulusviertel area is that they all run circular around the church at the center of the neighborhood. As a result, your sense of direction can get turned around pretty easily. I was about 2/3 of the way there when I stopped with my huge gigantic suitcase and bag over my shoulder, and pulled out a big map. An old woman approached me, as I pulled out my map:

“Where are you going?”

I almost started to respond right away like I was in America. Then I stopped and thought for a second. Most ‘older’ people here don’t know English very well at all. Yet, somehow this woman could speak English very clearly. I was taken aback by her English as I stared at streets on a map whose names I couldn’t even pronounce (sidenote: there is one street here—Ludwig Wucherer Strasse—that even Germans have shortened to ‘LuWu’ because it is a mouthful to say). I told the woman I was looking for Humboldtstrasse. She pointed me down the street, and I continued to walk.

In Paulusviertel and many other places in Halle, the sidewalks don’t accommodate ‘rolling’ suitcases very well at all. Not only was my bag heavy, but it felt like it took me almost an hour to get from the hostel to Matthias’s place. I carried my bag to try and make the trip more speedy with intermittent breaks when it would get too heavy. I was almost there.

Based on my messages with Matthias, I felt a bit more confident about meeting him. He could write English very well, so I figured I could talk to him in English until I get better at German.

I finally arrived outside the building and rang his flat. It looked like a typical DDR building: exposed brick, chipped paint on the window moldings, and sparse graffiti tags near the front door. I rang the doorbell for his flat, and he buzzed me in and I carried my suitcase up.

I walked upstairs to meet him, and I set my things inside. The flat was enormous! It looked old and very much ‘lived-in’. The ceilings were tall, old decorative carved detailing from decades and decades ago still spanned the border of the ceiling. The doorknobs looked like fancy antique doorknobs. The place had that old ‘classic’ feel. He and his flatmates had just moved in a little while ago and were still in search for new furniture. He guided me to the living room, and we sat at the dining table and talked. The windows were open, it was hot out, and I had just been sweating from carrying my suitcases, but now the sun was going down and the cool breeze was starting to enter the flat.

We discussed many things from technology, to our jobs, why I was here, how I know Nick (our mutual friend), about what it feels like to have been here for a few days, my experience with the plane, and my trepidation with speaking German. I told him I was a little surprised that he could speak English so well. It was not even his mother tongue, and here he was, having a very deep and reflective conversation with me. Only rarely would he ever stop me and say “what do you mean by this word?”

At this point, it almost put me to shame, thinking about how little I knew of another foreign language. I took so many years of Spanish in high school and college, but I would not nearly fare as well as Matthias did with English if I talked with someone in Spanish. Not even close. Yet, at this point, I knew I would be in good care under his hospitality. He had a gentle, sensible, calm and caring personality. I’d just hope that I wouldn’t tread on such hospitality.

I told him that I would go to meet up with a fellow teacher that night, and he gave me a key. He was from England, a fellow musician, yet instead of having a keen interest in Rock music, his lied instead more with Classical music. Yes, worlds apart. Still, I wanted to meet him, find out more about teaching, and see how he’s enjoyed Halle so far.

I waited in the apartment for him as Matthias and I continued talking about Facebook, technology, and the Berlin Wall falling down (sidenote: this will become a consistent subject discussed moving forward, and the more I continue to hear stories about the wall—before and after—and see people’s stories about/reactions towards it, the more ‘interesting’ the subject becomes).

About a half hour later, Ben phones Matthias (as I had no cell phone) and rings the doorbell downstairs. I then meet Ben in the stairwell. He had a shy, quiet demeanor, and spoke very softly. Matthias explained that he had several parties to go to as it was still ‘BBQ season’ and mentioned that if we would still be up to hang out after grabbing a beer, we could go meet up with him. He then led us to several bars nearby that had outdoor seating, and Ben and I had a few drinks.

We were shown to a bar on the edge of Paulusviertel. The bar seemed a bit quiet for a Friday night, and I felt somewhat relieved to speak with another foreigner who could also speak English. From the onset, I didn’t think we would share that much in common, and while that may be true, the most important thing I figured was the fact that we were in similar situations. Yet, he came from a town of about a hundred or two hundred people in England, and I came from a city boasting around eight hundred thousand. But the ‘foreign’ experience would still very much be the same. A ‘you speak English, I speak English’ thing and many conversations starting with ‘isn’t it weird that they do/don’t do this or that?’ There was just a sense of relief that I could speak English with someone who could understand nearly 100% of everything I was saying and pick up on slang and other esoteric English idioms.

It was only three days in, and I already started thinking about back home, thinking about all the people I already missed, and the people who I wouldn’t see for such a long time. It felt daunting. And the prospect of teaching also felt daunting. I had never done this before. I found myself asking him many questions about how he liked it here in Halle, how his German was, and how he liked teaching. I was nervous about everything, and no matter what he said, I would always think of something else that might cast doubt on my ability to overcome the challenges of moving forward with a completely new occupation, learning a foreign language and living so far away from home. I had never left the San Francisco Bay area before.

After a few drinks each, we then parted ways (he lived south and had to take Die Stadtline) and I headed back to the flat. How nice it would be to sleep in a real bed, in a real room, in a real flat.

As I walked back I started to think about how language can provide a means for comfort. If I ever encountered a German person who I couldn’t understand, an immediate nervousness and stressfulness would wash over me. I wouldn’t be able to understand him or her, and they wouldn’t be able to understand me. But not only this, my being here and not being able to speak, I would be more nervous than he or she if I had encountered them in America. I couldn’t help but think that language grants a certain power and connectedness to your surroundings. In that way, communication itself becomes something ‘powerful’. Knowing enough language here to be able to buy groceries from the store, that’s powerful. Or buying new clothes. Or setting up a bank account. It seems silly, but being in a foreign country really makes you realize how much you can underestimate the value and power of language.

I knew these were the things I’d have to learn how to not only learn the language of, but also to learn how to ‘do’. As ‘tips’ are even different here, I knew there would be slight differences in just about anything and everything. Washing clothes. Driving (sidenote: by the time of having just written this, I’ve had my first real driving experience…on my own…so, more to come..). Saying greetings. And I would have the luxury of learning these things all over again. It would be like I had transformed from a twenty-seven year old man into the cultural equivalent of a toddler. I could walk, eat, go to the bathroom, and that was just about it.

Yes, so many things to look forward to.

As my room came with no furniture save for a bed and a blanket, my roommate Ronja and her friend wrote a note and posted it on the front of the apartment building, it reads:

Lovely Neighbors,

Our new roommate from San Francisco is urgently looking for furnishings for his empty room. If you have decent furniture to give to or leave for us, let us know!

Matt would be particularly pleased with a desk and a wardrobe!

Thanks!

Matt (please speak slowly!)
Ronja

The famous composer, Händel, was born in Halle/Saale. They erected a statue of him in the Marktplatz to commemorate him and they chose to have the statue face London, the place where he died. When he passed away, many people from Halle were furious with England and London in particular for not bringing his body back to Halle. As a result, they chose to make the statue face London.

I get to walk by this everyday when I go to work. The clock tower is called “Roter Turm” (Red Tower) because centuries ago they would hold executions there, and since it was on a slope, the blood would run down the western side of the tower.

Yes, German history can be pretty gruesome.

I woke up a little restless to catch breakfast with a half hour to spare. I would soon have my interview later this morning, I thought. Hanging my suit in the spare closet, I set down to go eat breakfast.

I was nervous, anxious, and worried. I had never taught before. I can’t really even speak German that well. What if they didn’t hire me?

I walked in and saw Aron sitting down at a table in the dining room. He mentioned that he would be leaving that day to go back to Cologne. Even though I had only met him two days ago, the onset of loneliness began to take hold of me. My first friend in Halle would leave to go back home for a whole two months.

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New furniture today. My room is coming along!

I hadn’t slept so much the first night. I was tired but restless. My night was mostly spent lying down, looking outside the windows from my bed, watching the night carry its way through dawn. In a matter of days I would have my first interview for ESL teaching in the city.

My mind couldn’t stop thinking about these new surroundings. Strange wall socket outlets, bathroom fixtures, the German note left on the door (that, at the time I couldn’t understand). And there sat my large, oversized, suitcase that screamed “American,” which looked so strange in comparison to the older man and Aron’s which seemed much more appropriately-sized. 

Then again, they’re just ‘traveling’. I on the other hand am ‘moving’ here.

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