- Jack Kerouac
I spent the weekend traveling, and had little time to reflect on where I was going or where I was coming from. Now, five solitary hours stretch before me, and the emotions hit.
I didn't think I could come to love a country and its people so completely in just a month. I miss DB trains and the autobahn. I miss local beers and mozarella baguettes and dense brotchen and Leibnitz cookies. I miss scarves and clouds and unpredictable weather and the immense gratitude for sunshine. I miss jokes translated into English and that green flavor we could never translate. I miss hazelnut everything. I miss "danke" and "bitte" and "nein nein nein!" I miss Miriam's singing. I miss Angela's smile.
Germany is a second home to me now. I have found that traveling where you are comfortable is freeing - in Germany I am boundless. But traveling where you are not comfortable is constricting - alone in Greece I am a tight universe, protecting myself. As I settle into the culture here I hope this will change.
We flew into Athens yesterday at dusk. The sunset lit up that gleaming urban jewel on the coast. Ilias met me at the airport and I was confronted with the task of greeting a Greek - Which cheek do you kiss first? Once or twice? What do you do with your hands? Can't we just hug?
It was 10 o'clock at night - but Natassa had dinner ready. "Eat, eat, eat!" I had some lovely cold tap water - this I don't miss about Germany. SItting on the couch with these characteristically warm, open Greeks, I knew I was with family. My heart expanded. Greece may be foreign to me, but these people I know and love.
This morning Natassa packed me into a taxi and sent me off. Greek was everywhere. It is spoken much more expressively, but my ears long for the crisp sounds of German. At the station, I hopped on what I prayed was the right train, asking a young man what car number it was.
"Five, maybe."
"Is there a sign anywhere?"
"Ha! This is Greece; there are no signs. The only signs are in the air."
Oh. Thanks. But after that help was offered by several people. Greeks don't leave you alone, for better or for worse. Germans just mind their own business, though are generally friendly enough if you ask. When I arrived in Germany, Miriam let me know where the food was, and that if I wanted something just to say so. Two hours in Athens, and I had already been offered food twelve times - and fed despite my answer that I was not hungry!
These are two sides of my heritage. Natassa says I have the best of both in me. My goal is to identify and celebrate those positive cultural traits - in myself and in everyone I talk to. SO I'm setting off on the next leg of my adventure, with a Greek phrasebook in my hand and Germany in my heart.