September recap

Thought I'd join a what's new with you in September blog link up and share what's been going on with me recently.

• We are living in our new house about two months now and we love it! There is still lots to do, we have quite a lot of boxes to unpack and some more furniture to buy but it's not urgent and we are getting there. Hopefully by Christmas everything will be done. Though from talking to other house owners, it sounds like the work is never truly finished, there are always new projects and improvements to be done! We had some friends over for our first dinner party in the new place a few weeks ago and it went really well. We served Irish stew with mushroom risotto and walnut and banana cake for dessert.


• We joined car sharing last month. Basically you pay a deposit and monthly fee then you can rent a car from one of the stations near you and just pay for it by hour. The GerMann has been the one driving but I tried last weekend. It was quite difficult actually! Since we don't have a car (the public transport is so good you don't need one here), I've only ever driven when I'm back in Ireland a few times a year at most. Not to mention I'd never driven on the right hand side before, which felt strange! Also I kept reaching out my left hand to change the gears and hitting the side door as you change gears on your right hand side, not left like in Irish cars. Hopefully it will get easier with practice because I felt like a learner driver all over again!


• We are still waiting on our telephone consultation with the immune specialist doctor to explain our blood test results and treatment plan for NK cells. We did have an appointment with our fertility clinic doctor. He said he isn't able to interpret our results though, we need to wait to talk to the other doctor but he did say he would support us doing the treatment. For instance I could get the intralipid infusions at my local clinic and not have to travel. He did mention that if you get the infusion too quickly there is a risk of a stroke! He commented that he wouldn't want to read about that happening to a patient at his clinic. Hubby said to me afterwards that it sounded like he is more worried about avoiding bad press than actually caring about my health! Hearing about the stroke risk has made me very nervous, there is certainly a limit to what risks I am prepared to take in order to have a baby. I am praying that any serious risks are minor!
  The "good" news is that since our first IVF ended in an early miscarriage, my health insurance might pay towards a fourth attempt and not just three. It's good to have that backup plan. I feel like four rounds of IVF is my limit physically and emotionally. I just really hope it works by then!
  


• Our next book club book will probably be "The light between oceans" by M. L. Stedman. From what I understand the book deals with infertility with the couple going through several miscarriages, so I can imagine reading it could be very sad and feel too real. But I've heard it's very well written. And I would like to see the film adaptation afterwards with Michael Fassbender.





• I went shopping yesterday. Normally the shops are closed Sundays in Germany but every so often they have a special Sunday shopping day. I couldn't decide on anything so in the end I bought myself some new pyjamas. I already have plenty but they looked so compfy and I bought cosy slipper boots too in matching burgundy which is my favourite colour at the moment.






• Some friends from Ireland will be visiting in a few weeks. Now we have the house and space, more people are coming over which we are delighted about. A few weeks ago my Dad and his partner visited and we had a fun time. We took them to the wine festival in Heilbronn which they loved! Schwarzriesling Rose was our favourite. Though Muskateller is a very nice white. We got pretty tipsy trying all the wines! I love showing people around where we live and having friends and family from home is always nice.

What's new with you?

Other expats come and go but I'm still here

One of the problems with making friends with other expats is that a lot of them are only living in Germany temporarily and eventually move back to their home countries (or some place else). In the almost five years I've lived here I've had to say goodbye countless times and it doesn't get any easier.

Finding people you really click with and building up the friendship takes time and when they leave, you naturally lament their absence. It's great that I now have lots of connections around the world, and these days with skype you can still keep in touch pretty well, but day to day I miss hanging out with the person.

Of course you're probably thinking I could make more of an effort to make German friends. And I do and I have some great ones now but in general I still find I have more in common with other expats and tend to connect with them faster.

I guess it's just a downside to living abroad, that you get to meet some great people and have them your life for awhile but then they move away. In another year or two everyone from my initial friend group here will most likely not live here anymore. Sometimes I feel like the last guest left at a party! At least I still have the GerMann to hang out with. And I can plan some more trips back to Dublin when I start feeling homesick.

Well...Are you fluent yet?

Without a doubt the top question people from home ask me has always been “are you fluent in German now?" They pretty much started asking me that from my first few weeks living here!

When I think of the word “fluent” I imagine understanding absolutely everything and since I'm not quite there yet then I feel bad about why not and tend to answer "no". However, a better definition of fluency is actually the the ability to get by in most situations, to make oneself understood and to be able to go about daily tasks such as working, going to the doctor, post office and so on without language problems or barriers.You might still have your accent and not sound like a native speaker but that's ok!

Often I'll be sitting in a meeting at work and have no problems keeping up with the conversation and tricky technical speak and I'll feel confident and fluent at that moment but then at another time I might be on a night out with a group of Germans in a noisy pub and I find it hard to follow the conversation with the background noise and then I feel a little lost. I used to ask people who had lived here a long time at what stage they felt really fluent and I was often told it took them three years living in the county but others said it took them at least five years.

Recently, I came across an article that helps explain how to tell whether you are fluent. One of the ways is that people don't modify their language for you anymore. When I first moved here I noticed that a lot of Germans would try to speak Hochdeutsch (high German - without using dialect or slang) and speak clearly to make it easier for me to understand. Now they talk quickly and normally using local dialects, which I'm now able to keep up with. Also I can watch TV shows and read articles in German and understand without having to stop to think about the translations in my head or acknowledge that it's not English, which is great.

My first month or so living here I found myself exhausted each night from the effort of having to constantly translate everything in my head, formulate an answer in English and translate that before speaking. Now something like 90% of the time I understand what's being said without having to try to think of the English equivalent. So I guess I would say I am fluent now!

If you speak other languages, at what stage did you feel truly fluent? Or do you think you will never reach that stage as a non-native speaker?

On my first blog post

I'm doing a blog link up! The theme is firsts (#firstsTOTALSOCIAL) and I thought I would share my initial blog post from nearly 4 years ago. From when I'd decided to move to Germany for "die große Liebe" (the great love!). Yep, I'm one of those expats who moved countries for love. Career wise it also wasn't a bad move for me luckily considering I was unemployed after coming back from travelling (one year in Australia). In the post I talk a little about our background story, how we got back together again despite breaking up a few years earlier when the long distance got too much.

Initially I thought I would move to Germany for awhile and just see how it goes, I wasn't thinking totally long term. It was a difficult year with a lot of ups and downs. After the initial "honeymoon phase" with the country passed I struggled for several months (also known as culture shock). I had a long commute, working in a foreign language was exhausting and life as an expat took some getting used to! I also lost my "suppose base"- family and friends from home. I had the GerMann of course which was great but I've always been very independent and didn't want to rely on him completely so I knew I also had a make a life for myself so I set about going to meetups and trying to make friends anyway possible (even if it meant arranging to meet total strangers off the internet!). And gradually I built up my friend group, improved my German and created a life for myself here.

Four years later and I'm glad I decided to take the leap of faith and make the move to Germany. The GerMann and I are happy newlyweds, I have a great job, circle of friends and despite occasional homesickness, I feel settled and happy and don't regret leaving Ireland 4 years ago!

You can read my first blog post here: Deciding to make the move