Friday, October 1, 2010

Stars for Germany




Growing up, I had mixed feelings about Germany--going from awe, to thinking it's a perfect place, to hating it because I had to be here when I wanted to be in Turkey, to never wanting to live there, to not caring that I hadn't been back in 5 years.

When we realized I might be moving to Germany, God approached me about the subject when I was going running one night. We talked about my experiences and evaluations of Germany. There were tears, surrender, healing, and a new open heart towards Germany.

Now I live in Germany. I honestly haven't considered living here since...a decade. But now that I'm here at God's command and good pleasure, I am content. Here are a few things I like about Germany, despite its shortcomings like every country:

--I LOVE all the flowers (many geraniums) that you see on every house, whether in the house, on the window sills, hanging outside from the window sill, in pots welcoming people in...
--I appreciate the cleanness. Every Saturday is "Sweep Day" in which the families rotate sweeping the road and sidewalk in front of their portion of the house.
--I haven't been to many regions in Germany, but where I live, in the Blackforest, is just breath-taking with its many hills, vineyards, trees, castles, fresh air...makes me smile thinking about it!
--As complicated, expensive, and ridiculous as the system is here, it works. You register something, it gets registered. You request this and that from the government, you get it. If you are sick, you're covered. If you're unemployed, 'socially weak,' or dying, you still don't end up on the streets
--People greet you when you pass them
--I love the different dialects and the many ways the dialects express the same thing (though this can be frustrating too because I never know which to use!)
--For online banking, there's a cool calculator thing that generates security codes so that everything you do is super confidential
--And I love how people really spend time outside.
--My neighbors rock, especially in the garden that one of them created:


2 comments:

  1. I KNEW you would come to love Germany. I used to be in love with it, enough that I took 5 1/2 years of German. But I've never been there! It was kind of "edged out" by my love for the British Isles as I got older, but I would still love to visit.

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  2. ...oh liebe Lydia, dann musst du unbedingt mal nach Bayern kommen... hier gibt es noch mehr Dialekte... und Franken, wo ich lebe, ist sehr schön... bist herzlich Willkommen!...
    Blumen habe ich auch *lach* sogar Geranien...

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