I haven't updated in a while, I hope no one has missed my blog too much. My family visited the week before last and it was a long awaited, good vacation with some of the people I love the most. I had not blogged too much before then because I didnt really have too much to say. I feel refreshed and rejuvenated after my break, but, as will happen when you live somewhere for seven months, this has become my home for right now and in the day-to-day living I dont notice or think about as many things as when I first came over, at least nothing thats blog worthy. Before my family came over I was trying to not overlook all the work and things I had to do here with excitement for my time with them, but nonetheless was definitely looking forward to the break. The Sunday before they came I did preach for the first time in "real church" in German. As there are three different churches that we are associated with here, I preached twice more, once when my family was here and the last time yesterday in our biggest church. It was a good experience I think. I was the most nervous when my family was here, but Im not sure if it was because they were here or because that morning I was told that the week before Barry had received some complaints about not being able to understand me when I had thought it had gone pretty well. My prayer every week was just that God would speak through me and open the peoples ears so that they could hear and understand whatever it was I said with my Southern accent.
Anyways, back to the vacation with my family. It was really a good week and I think we got to see a whole lot. In some ways it was different from what I expected but I think it was still good. It is kind of hard for me to really say though. Part of my criteria and expectations for it being a good trip is/was if my family (Dad, Mom, Hannah, and Luc) got to see everything they wanted to and at the same time see a different culture and learn a little about different ideas and how other people may live. I also wanted them to see and experience the Germany that I have come to love and how different things from history have shaped the country into what it is today, as well as maybe seeing or realizing some of the connections and roles the US has played in that history. For these reasons I can really only speak to the other half of my expectations which was just to travel and spend time with my family, which was great. Maybe theyll comment below to the other half. Before I give more of my thoughts about our week through Germany, Ill share where we went and what we did.
My family started out on Thursday planning to get to Frankfurt by Friday morning and then to Chemnitz by way of car before that evening. They flew about six hours then were told they were landing in Philly. Something was wrong with the plane and so they had to wait in Philly for a couple of hours at 3 in the morning until someone could wake up, fix their plane, and refuel them. They finally made it to Frankfurt by Friday evening but were so tired they decided to just get a hotel there for the night. I know they didnt enjoy it and I know I was disappointed they were delayed. I was hoping Hannah and Luc could go to youth group with me and then the next morning I wanted all of them to come to our Family Coffee in Checkpoint to see what we did there. They ended up getting here Saturday evening and we went and had a nice German dinner at some place I had never been to before. They did get to come to the Sunday service that IMT led and Sunday night to the English service where they got to meet several of the people from our main church, and entertained by our Irish pastor and his band singing and celebrating St. Patricks Day in his own little way. From there we sped to Berlin and spent the next two days there. We saw all of the main tourist attractions there and even had some time for Hannah to go shopping. On Wednesday we drove to Munich and on the way stopped by Dresden and Nurenberg. In Munich we saw most of the "main attractions" although I think it is a much prettier city during the summer when it is warm. While staying in Munich we made day trips to Dachau, Neuschwanstein Castle, and Salzburg which were all pretty big hits I think. On Sunday they flew home and luckily my mom was pretty adamant about getting to the airport early. I did not realize until we had seperated at the airport that the time had moved forward an hour during the night before. My mom said they didnt notice at all.
It was definitely different from when I had travelled before. I believe there were several factors contributing to that, but wonder how my family experienced it. For me it felt like more of a family vacation through a country that was not that different except for some of the food and the language. Im really interested in knowing how it felt to my family though. Because I have lived here for a couple of months, I do not notice as many differences now, I dont think. I also felt at times that I was more focused on being a tour guide than actually seeing what was around me. Because I had already seen most of the places we went and because I can speak/understand a little bit of German now I was happy to do that, but I was not seeing things for the first time or focused on trying to find the differences and similarities in the two cultures as I had been when I had travelled alone or with Alana. As the week went on I did tire a little of my family relying on me to communicate. For one thing I am not that fluent in German that I can speak where the people always understand me or where I always understand them. Since we were mostly in the touristy areas, most people recognized I was from the US and in the end spoke English with me anyways, which was a little bit of a downer as I would have liked to practice my German more and I was never sure if they changed to English because they didnt understand me or they wanted to practice their English. The other thing was that I wanted my family to experience trying to communicate with someone with a different language, and of course, they could speak English with the people just as well as I could. That was one observation I found interesting. I think if I had not been there my family would have gotten along just fine, but because I was there and in their minds I could speak German and had visited before, sometimes they would look to me to communicate when they could have just as easily by themselves.
This trip was also different because it was more than just me and what I wanted to do and see. I had experienced this a little with Alana before, but then I did not realize that some of the problem was me being selfish. Alana had basically trusted me the entire trip to lead us to where we should go and to the things of interest that we should see, which were mostly the things written about in my travel book that I found interesting. I thought she was crazy to want to go certain places just to shop and didnt really give her much time to do that. On this trip, as before, I was a little worried that we wouldnt have time to see everything we "needed to" and may have rushed my family at times. On the other hand, since I had seen everything already I really only insisted on them going to the places that I had found interesting before and let them decide how they wanted to use their time a little more. This meant that we spent some time shopping and perusing stores I would have just walked by if I had been alone. Because I was with my parents and it was my family's spring break, we also ate much better than I had last time. We ate at some really good restaurants just about every day for dinner and several mornings for breakfast had something good from a local bakery.
I also felt that because I was with a group of people that I knew, I didnt notice other people as much as when I travel alone. I guess it is some kind of human need to have some kind of communication and companionship and when I travel alone then I guess I look for it in the simple acknowledgements of other people, such as a little smile or head nod when passing someone on the street. I think that I was more focused on my family, what they were saying or doing, than on strangers. It is also not as easy to meet and start a conversation with random people when you are not staying in the same place such as a hostel.
I think I have more thoughts about the trip, but I cant really think too much more. The last observation that I found interesting is also one that Im very sorry happened. I really felt terrible afterwards and mom I am so sorry I scared you. She and Hannah had visited the inside of a castle while Luc, Dad, and I had walked to an icy lake in the Alps to wait on them. We had set a meeting point at the ticket booth in the small town beneath the castle. As mom and Hannah were walking down they passed by us on the other side of the street but didnt see us. Thinking Id be funny I ran up behind them and acted like I was gonna grab moms bag and run off. I feel terrible even writing about this. Mom really got scared. She was screaming and kind of getting ready to fight back I think. I immediately realized it was a bad idea and how scared she was and tried to let her know it was me. I had to kind of grab her shoulders to try and calm her down and so she didnt freak out on me and I was saying "Mom, mom, its me Joe". I looked her straight in the eyes and said it and the thing that was interesting, although I am sorry it happened, was I swear she did not recognize me and did not realize it was me even then. Hannah had started laughing, but mom was too scared to recognize her son. I had always wondered how people could accidentally shoot someone or whatever, but Im quite sure it has something to do with that state of anxiety where you are only reacting to something in an effort to save yourself. Mom told me later that her and a friend had been robbed like that before in Europe. I really feel terrible about scaring her so much and wouldve never done that had I known what would happen.
