Relocated to Berlin: Not Quite Home for the Holidays

It seemed somehow fitting that we would be returning to the United States from Berlin five months to the day after we had originally left.  We were going home for the holidays (Christmas with my family in Washington, DC, New Year with my wife's family in Pittsburgh), and we were more than a little apprehensive about the emotions that we would confront returning to our roots.  Would we feel overcome with homesickness when seeing our family and our old friends?  Would we feel overwhelming nostalgia when visiting our old favorite restaurants?  Would we feel relief that we could finally understand and be understood by everybody we met?

The answers to all of these questions were a little bit surprising.  After all, I have lived overseas before, and was already acquainted with the feelings associated with being physically disconnected from "my people" for an extended period of time.  Then again, that was over 20 years ago, when the world was a very different and less connected place.  That was back before the Internet and e-mail were ubiquitous.  That was back when "foreign cuisine" in many parts of Europe (and the U.S. for that matter) was merely a slightly spicier version of the local favorites  That was back when international travel was still something of a novelty rather than an essential part of conducting everyday business.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to me and my family was that, as soon as we got off the airplane in Washington, DC, it felt like the previous five months had been nothing more than an extended vacation.  As we drove up the Dulles Toll Road toward my mother's apartment in Georgetown where we would be staying, passing our old neighborhood in Vienna, passing by our old haunts in Arlington, we were struck by - despite how radically everything in our own lives had changed - how very little in our old world seemed to be different.  Perhaps most disconcerting of all, when we drove past our old house, absolutely nothing looked any different from the outside than when we last pulled out of the driveway.  Almost instinctively, I wanted to reach for the garage door opener, half-expecting to walk into the house to be welcomed by a hot meal and a cold beer.

And yet, as we spent the Christmas week in Washington visiting friends and family, and as we then moved on to Pittsburgh to do the same over New Year, we came to realize how little our motivations for moving had changed over our time away.  To be certain, it was wonderful to see all of our loved-ones again.  But everything else that had driven us away - the politics, the traffic, the horrible horrible prime time CBS television lineup - was still there.  And with our experience of spectacular public transportation, walkable neighborhoods, and not knowing enough German to get sucked into politics or local television, the differences were even more stark in our minds now.

It was a good trip.  I am very glad that we went.  But by the end of our two weeks in the United States, we were ready to return home to Berlin.  It turns out that my favorite restaurants really were not as good as I remembered them.  It turns out that, as much as I love driving, driving on the Beltway still really sucks.  It turns out that, while it is nice to understand people and to be understood by them, there is not much being said that is really very important.

On the other hand, Skippy peanut butter really is the creamiest after all.