Coming home… Settling back in.

September 4, 2011

Fortunately, Darrell’s cousin (Jen – our last US visitor to Switzerland) had a long career in the Army. She told us that the Army talks to soldiers coming home after a long deployment about what to expect. It was good for her to frame that for me and just let me know that there is a process to being home again. We clearly are not the same people we left as. I mean, we are still fun-loving energetic, and lovable :) , but with such a different view on life and living. I’ve been home since August 25^th now and have had some time to try settling.

It has been hard to say I am happy to be home without any caveats because there is still a lot of work ahead of us to get settled. We’ve just been going through tasks for so long now. Lately, it has been get cell phones (we have new numbers if anyone needs them), turn on utilities, go to a wedding, visit our neglected property in eastern Washington, start cleaning and moving back into our house, thinking about house projects we need to do, weeding our out of control garden….

But we are settling, and there are lots of things in the works here now. I’ve ordered a raclette maker and we are looking at espresso makers so we can stop using our drip coffee pot (friends in Switzerland were always amazed that we would drink that “stuff that you leave in a container”). We have plans for a firepit outside so we can do regular grills with wood instead of with our gas grill – which is for sale now. I am also excited to say that we now have a home carbonation system so I can drink wasser mit Kohlensäure (carbonated water) any time I want. I’m planning to sit in on the university German classes and am trying to figure out how to make regular visits back to German speaking countries so I can practice.

I am also excited about some of my favorite Bellingham things like social exercising (runs and bike rides with girlfriends), a 25K run in January on Orcas Island that I just signed up for, spontaneous and frequent get-togethers with friends, our killer Farmer’s Market, NPR at the right time of the day, and good American micro-brewed beer (after giving Swiss and some German beers a serious chance, I have to say that it really doesn’t get much better than American micro-brews for tasty beer). I am happy to say though that at our first meal with friends, I said en guete (enjoy your meal) without thinking about it.

I suspect that there will continue to be things that strike me as interesting or odd, but there are already some to talk about.

• Red onions. Darrell claims that Switzerland had red onions, but for whatever reasons, I didn’t have red onions for a year – and I had forgotten about them. Discovering them on a salad though was wonderful!

• Toilets – I am still trying to figure this out, but I think the flush handle is on the opposite side (left side here – I remember it always being on the right in Switzerland). Even more importantly though, in Switzerland almost every toilet had a toilet brush beside it (public and private) and it was clear that you were to clean your own toilet bowl. Here, there are some toilet brushes, but not as commonly. It is an odd feeling to have been very careful about cleaning up in Switzerland and then come here where it isn’t expected.

• My neighborhood… It is an old charming neighborhood in Bellingham with turn of the century houses of all styles and with tree lined streets. I loved this neighborhood when I left. The first day we went back though, I had a bit of a panic attack. All I could think was that this place was so chaotic. The houses were all different and maintained to different degrees, the yards were different shapes, the alley ways were dingy, there were parked cars and power lines everywhere (both of these are underground in Switzerland)… I honestly had to get out of there. It was just so different than the well kept Swiss homes, apartments, and green spaces with clean lines and similar styles everywhere. A week later though, we’ve had dinner three times in a row outside in our garden and I am happy to be back in my house again. Unfortunately, I think the power lines will always bother me.

• There are a lot more American flags than I remember. Still not as many as Swiss flags, but there are plenty of the Old Glory here and there.

• The brats (bratwurst) are really small here.We have to spend some time exploring what our local options are.

• And related to that…. MUSTARD – I am sure I royally embarrassed Darrell by breaking out into excited (loud) chatter about all of the mustard options (picture below) we had at our local grocery store. As one friend here pointed out, we weren’t even at the nice store, we were at the ghetto store and still had probably 40 different mustard options – Russian, Chinese, Düssseldorf, American picnic, chipotle, Hawaiian, horseradish, cranberry,jalapeno, wasabi, honey …. oh the varieties! In Switzerland, we did most of our shopping in Fehraltorf with small grocery stores, but I think it is fair to say that most groceries there focused on carrying one or two brands for each item, so options were always limited. For example, all Mexican products were always the Old El Paso brand only.

There is only one more thing to happen that will make life complete… and we are in the process of that right now… stay tuned.