Ten Years in Germany

Wow.

Today marks the day when I touched down to Germany. Rhein-Main was still an open airport, and my sponsor came to pick me up. I remember seeing everything, and feeling like it was so unreal. After all, I was used to living in Japan and Korea, and seeing things written in kanji, kana, and hangul. Instead, the first German sign I saw as she was driving us back to Ramstein was "Ausfahrt", thinking it was a village. Hurricane Katrina had just hit Louisiana and Mississippi, and my bank was completely underwater.

It was also the first weekend I hung out with Juicy Girl, aka Djus. Jennifer was her real name, and she had managed to track my sponsor down, give her telephone number to her to pass along to me. I don't believe anyone has ever done that before or since. Still, it was nice to think that I was for once considered "cool" in my pseudo-popularity.

Since then, I've been here in limbo ever since. Everything, both good and bad can be seen in my previous entries, if you're that interested in a re-cap. I will just say that I prefer being here versus the US any day of the week, and will do everything within my power to remain here for as long as possible. Very little interests me about the US, outside of video gaming, and perhaps colonial history in the DC/Northern Virginia area. At this point, I've lived the majority of my adult life outside of America, and Germany is the longest place I've consecutively lived. I am without a doubt an expatriate, a nomad of sorts, and definitely a pariah. If I tried to integrate back into American life and culture now, I would feel like a fish out of water and do everything I could to return to Europe once more.

Tchuss!