on culture shocking and horses

Happy slightly belated birthday, America.  Sorry I was so busy concerning myself with attack-rodents that I forgot to say it sooner.  Hope you all had a lovely fourth!

The story of my life is that the last few days have not been particularly interesting.  I was ridiculously productive today, running all sorts of errands and being a general fiend.  I finally got around to opening a bank account, which I have to pay 6 euros for monthly, which is LAME.  What a stupid-ass banking system.  I'm also having Epic Visa Problems that will probably get their own blog post, if and when they are ever solved.  My ace in the hole is my Portuguese birth certificate, so if all goes to according to plan, I'll be able to circumvent the system and all the shit the German government has put me through already.  However, everything had been going to plan, until the moment it stopped going to plan, namely, when my visa spontaneously combusted in my face.

As far as culture shock goes, I've found it's thus far been to limited intense and terrible moments, and triggered by something completely innocuous.  Then I find myself inwardly retreating to some dark place where I wish bad things on the world because I am incapable of living in it.  Like when the recipe called for the 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and I turned the oven on only to realize it was in Celsius.  Or when the guy at the Alien Registration Office saw the look of horror on my face as I sat there staring at forms, and I had to ashamedly confess that I had no idea how tall I am in centimeters.  And he had to measure me against a wall like I was at a doctor's office. Or when I went to buy flip flops, and had to try on every single size starting with 35, because I don't know my European shoe size.    

But the good thing is, it doesn't last long.  I always take a deep breath, grit my teeth, hate everything, and figure it out--mainly because I don't have any other option.  400 degrees F is a little over 200 degrees C, I'm 162 centimeters tall, and I'm a 40 (in flip flops at least).  But even though I still don't understand the metric system, I remain a deeply anxious human being, and my self-esteem is directly connected to how well I feel I've accomplished Living In Germany on any given day, I still wouldn't change my situation for anything in the world.  It may rain more often than not here, but at least I'm being rained on in Germany, and I try to keep sight of how cool that is.

My favorite moments are the delayed reactions to the normal, that tell me it's getting easier.  Like today when I was at the bank, and there was a dog behind me trying to wrap itself around my legs, and my first thought was "what an adorable dog."  Five minutes later I realized I was standing in the middle of a marble-floored, gold-countered public establishment and hanging with a basset hound, and I hadn't even batted an eye.  Because some of the weirder it's-so-German things are magically morphing into it's-so-normal things, and that's neat.  I like those moments.

In other news, I went back to the barn today to help out.  I longed a three-year-old around for a little while, and then they threw me on the buffalo Haflinger, who truly is a buffalo.  A lazier horse I have never encountered in my life, but I'm a happy camper. Sometimes I think I'm okay without horses in my life for extended periods of time, but then I get my ass beat by a golden buffalo, my legs have already started hurting, and I smell like horses, but I still skipped all the way back to my bike.  The awesome thing is that the barn is less than a minute's bike ride away, and the people are lovely.  I gave the daughter my phone number, so she can call me whenever they need help with feeding or longeing, or whenever the buffalo-thing is free.  Plus she told me I can come by whenever to hang out.  So...yay!  I even learned lots of new words, like longieren (longeing), Trenze (bridle), and büffelig (...buffalo-like).

So...yes!  I have horses, I have a pretty awesome family, and I have people that are quickly turning into friends, and all of these are wonderful things.  I never claimed that moving my life 3,915.89 miles away was going to be a cakewalk, but I'm still really happy to be where I am.  The government hates me and my masters degree depends on passing a single test, but I'm really, really content with my life, which I haven't been able to say for a while.  So this is a good change!