Travel
It Was Probably Destiny That Brought Me Here
A sign from the universe that I almost missed
A longing
It was two decades ago (wow, time flies so fast) when I found myself in a strange situation. I was in my mid-twenties and life was, in general, great. I had a good job, I was climbing the corporate ladder quite nicely, I was good at what I did, I had just married, and the weekends with my husband and our common friends were great.
However, I missed something in life. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was. But I knew deep down that there was something amiss. I felt as if my life lacked meaning.
I wanted to meet with people with whom I could have deeper and meaningful discussions about art, culture, music, literature, artists and their lives, and of course travel.
From a very young age, I have wanted to travel and have dreamt of exploring faraway exotic places. Of all the places I had envisioned, Europe and especially France had a very special place in my heart.
A travel memoir on France and French poetry by Charles Baudelaire translated into English, fascinated me so much that I wanted to read the original one. I figured that what’s a better way to learn about a country and its culture than joining a language course?
As a child, I have always wanted to learn a foreign language but I never got the opportunity. So here was my opportunity. Learning a language could fill that void and French was, of course, my obvious choice. I was already earning enough to pay for a course, money was not my roadblock. If it was something, it was time.
So I decided to enroll myself in a weekend course for French with Alliance Française. However, the building in which Alliance Française was based in my hometown, had just burnt down to ashes. So I ended up signing a course for German at Goethe Institut.
Surprise, surprise!
It was a big surprise to me too because I don’t think I have ever considered myself interested in anything remotely German.
On the contrary, because of World War II, the image of Germany was still not that great. My other option was Russian but the Goethe Institut was closer to my home, and the time to commute was a major factor, so I chose German. I wrote here in detail why I ended up learning German.
Initially, I signed up for a two-month-long course just so that if I hated it, I wouldn’t lose a ton of money. The teacher who spoke to me during my first visit guaranteed me that I would not regret it.
And thus started a new love affair that I cherish until this day and I don’t think I can ever outgrow this.
A language course is so much more
I found the course fascinating and loved learning the language. You may think of me as strange because the German language rather sounds harsh to non-German speakers but it's such a phonetic language and the rules for grammar to me sounded very scientific too.
But that’s not the reason I loved this language so much. I came to know about a very different culture. At Goethe Institut, we would host Easter egg hunt parties, Carnivals, or Christmas events and try out German food like Sauerkraut mit Bratwurst.
We spent many hours watching German movies about how life was in East Germany and what happened when the wall fell. I cried when I watched Good Bye, Lenin! I loved the spirit of the girl named Lola in Lola rennt.
I watched many movies by directors like Fatih Akins about the second-generation Turkish population in Germany and German-Turkish cross-cultural tales of love and conflict.
I watched endless documentaries about German cities like the Rathaus-Glockenspiel in Marienplatz in Munich, how Dresden was completely bombarded, and what happened to millions of Germans who were on the east side of the Berlin Wall. I wrote essays and letters about places like the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin as if I had been there without ever setting foot in it.
But what I gained the most from this course was a community of like-minded people with whom I could have deeper meaningful discussions. And I went ahead to have some deeper and more meaningful friendships which I am so grateful for and which I cherish even after two decades.
Dream comes true
In 2006, I moved to the US with my husband. When I was living in Boston, I fondly remembered my German lessons, my classmates and the great time we had together learning about a country and its culture. In the meantime, I was blessed with a daughter.
Finally, in 2011, an opportunity came up for my husband to work in Düsseldorf for a year and a half.
We landed in Düsseldorf on a gray June afternoon. We stayed in an aparthotel for a couple of weeks and found an apartment for us in Ratingen, closer to the Düsseldorf airport and my husband’s office.
It was a pretty little town with a medieval wall still intact (only parts of it), just the way I had imagined a German city would be. I felt my dream came true.
In the next few years, that apartment, the neighborhood, and the Altstadt became the focus of my life. The hanging geraniums and petunias were such a delight.
Our daughter was just 15 months old when we moved to Germany and taking her to the Spielplatz twice a day was fun. I had a chance to meet other people and try my German.
There were many parks and play areas near our home. On a fine autumn day, when the leaves would turn crimson, my daughter would play in the sandpit while I would sit under a big maple tree, enjoying the crisp autumn sunshine.
During spring and summer times, we would spend a lot of time in the nearby Erholungspark Volkardey. That park was pure bliss. It was right in the city, so you didn’t really have to trek a long way to get there. Every morning, my toddler and I would walk to the park for a few hours of golden sunshine and fresh air (whenever it wasn’t raining).
Every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, there was a farmer's market in our city. Visiting a farmers market with our toddler was a delight because everyone loved kids and they would offer her carrots or fruits to snack on. After shopping in big-box stores in the USA for a few years, this was such a big and pleasant change.
Picking fresh cherries and plums on a bright Saturday morning from the open farmers market was something I looked forward to and made me happy. And there was always time for Kaffee und Kuchen afterward before heading home with fresh produce.
I was literally living the life of my dream. I could not have asked for anything better.
In the next few years, we traveled around Germany as much as we could and I made sure I visited all those places I read or watched documentaries about.
I think, of all the places I have visited in Germany, Berlin had the most impact on me.
Visiting Berlin meant as if I was living in history. I still remember the day the Berlin wall fell, a day right after my birthday, and how we all were glued to the TV. All the books I had read and the movies I had watched about the partition in Germany created this longing in me to see the wall myself, which is now a fine specimen for art and murals (whatever of it is still there).
A sign from the universe?
Life in Germany also showed me how prejudiced we can be. Before coming to Germany, I had this idea that the Germans are rude. I couldn’t be more wrong.
Our German neighbors embraced us and made us feel that we belonged and that we too, were a part of their community.
Perhaps it was my ability to speak German that broke the ice.
I had no idea I would end up in Germany when I started learning it. I had no expectations. I never even planned to learn this language. But that feeling of emptiness, the building for Alliance Française burning down, and me, ending up for a German course, all seemed to be destiny — a sign from the universe that I was yet to interpret.
Check out these two articles on the January challenge prompt:
Michele Maize — “I Saw The Signs When I Opened Up My Eyes”
Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles — “Signs That Will Make You Smile”
Thank you for reading and many thanks to the editors of Globetrotters for this lovely prompt.
