Hello all!
I'm over my homesickness for today. Today was spent watching people.
I like people. People are people everywhere. I mean, they're doing the same kinds of things all over the world.
There are the teenage boys out front of the cafe trying to look cool for the teenage girls who walk by.
There's the woman who chit-chats amicably with me in the bathroom about her life, her hair, and why aren't these bathrooms cleaner -- even though we've never met before.
There's the grouchy old man on the beat-up bicycle who yells at everyone in his way like he owns the road. "Ach, Mädchen! Was machst du?!" as in "Girl! What are you doing on my bicycle path?!" And I can't help but laugh because he does this to everyone within ten feet of him, so even if you're walking your bike on the other side of the broad sidewalk, he yells at you.
There's the eight year old who definitely wants to be a top model when she grows up and prances around the house in some "borrowed" boots from Mom's closet making a face like she's too sexy for Milan, too sexy for Milan, New York and Ja-pan ....
And there's the cute foreign guy who runs the internet cafe who's phone number I totally just got even though neither of us speaks gut deutsch. So, when I feel like I'm all alone, I go people watching. I sat with a glass of vanilla tea in a cafe today for an hour, pretending to read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and checking out people. I found that I'm not really in outer space or anything; I'm just in a bizarro version of home where nobody speaks English. So I don't feel so totally lonely, because these are just people, people whom I can eventually make friends with and ask on dates and oh man here comes the cute foreign guy look natural look natural look---
Gotta go. Love you guys!
PS: Next post - Rachael's church and Marcy's church and why I love a store here called New Yorker.
I'm over my homesickness for today. Today was spent watching people.
I like people. People are people everywhere. I mean, they're doing the same kinds of things all over the world.
There are the teenage boys out front of the cafe trying to look cool for the teenage girls who walk by.
There's the woman who chit-chats amicably with me in the bathroom about her life, her hair, and why aren't these bathrooms cleaner -- even though we've never met before.
There's the grouchy old man on the beat-up bicycle who yells at everyone in his way like he owns the road. "Ach, Mädchen! Was machst du?!" as in "Girl! What are you doing on my bicycle path?!" And I can't help but laugh because he does this to everyone within ten feet of him, so even if you're walking your bike on the other side of the broad sidewalk, he yells at you.
There's the eight year old who definitely wants to be a top model when she grows up and prances around the house in some "borrowed" boots from Mom's closet making a face like she's too sexy for Milan, too sexy for Milan, New York and Ja-pan ....
And there's the cute foreign guy who runs the internet cafe who's phone number I totally just got even though neither of us speaks gut deutsch. So, when I feel like I'm all alone, I go people watching. I sat with a glass of vanilla tea in a cafe today for an hour, pretending to read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and checking out people. I found that I'm not really in outer space or anything; I'm just in a bizarro version of home where nobody speaks English. So I don't feel so totally lonely, because these are just people, people whom I can eventually make friends with and ask on dates and oh man here comes the cute foreign guy look natural look natural look---
Gotta go. Love you guys!
PS: Next post - Rachael's church and Marcy's church and why I love a store here called New Yorker.
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3 comments:
Raychel,
You are the bomb-diggity. Good job getting a phone number and reaching out. I think you have a great strategy for dealing with homesickness. You write all those people in a way that makes me see and hear them. Keep up the good work excelling as a transplant.
W00t! Madame, I have not been called the bomb-diggity in a good long while. That makes my night.
this is Heather, so I'm not -really- anonymous. The blog made me smile, recently I too have been people watching. But, alas, all my people watching has been for profiling purposes. My life is so painfully college it hurts right now. I'm glad that I got your address, and your comment about people watching made me think of something my friend Jess and I talked about. She once had an entire conversation with a French woman about her grandchild; Jess does not speak French. The woman did not speak English, and yer both parties knew what the other one was saying because we have a tendency to fall into the same pattern of human interactions. (you see a woman's grand baby, she'll tell you about how cute it is/how much she loves the baby and you, in turn, will tell her it's adorable and that you are happy for her.) Can't wait to read the next installment
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