Happy in Germany

Today I feel the utmost gratitude that I am genuinely happy living as an expat in Germany.  The same cannot be said for all expats.  Today, we had a new student in our class.  He is from the U.S. so I was thrilled to have another native English speaker in the class.  My enthusiasm was short lived though as within mere minutes of meeting him, he started complaining how much he hated Germany, how boring it is here and that he had no idea how he would survive the two years he would be here for his wife's job.  I assumed that he had been here awhile to feel so strongly about living in Germany, but it turns out he has been here three days, yes that's right, three days.  I sincerely hope he is just experiencing the initial culture shock that sometimes happens when you move to another country and that soon he will be able to adjust his attitude, otherwise it will be a long miserable two years for him. 

Coincidentally, today I was also speaking German with a Russian student in our class.  Through our limited German, I still managed to find out that he is married and has a son.  I asked if his wife was also learning German.  He said no, that she needed to stay home with their son.  She doesn't speak any German, so while I haven't met her, I can only imagine how lonely she must be in a new country, unable to communicate, and unlikely to be able to do so in the near future.  Financially it makes sense for him to learn German first, since he is an Engineer and once his German language skills are better he has excellent job prospects, but my heart goes out to her. 

I am in Germany under very fortunate circumstances.  My fiance, J.P. is German and able to navigate me through the day to day language and cultural struggles I face.  He has opened his friends to me so that I am making connections and friendships much more quickly than I would on my own.  I am able to study German full time, thus enabling me to grasp the language much more quickly than if I was taking a night class, which many expats do.  There are clubs in which English is the spoken language thereby providing me additional outlets for speaking English and the opportunity to make friends.  Today, I have gratitude pouring out of my heart.  I am indeed a lucky girl to be happily living as an expat in Germany!