A White Christmas...in Germany

Full disclosure: we will not actually be IN Germany ON Christmas Day. But, as most of you know, Christmas is happily so much more than just one day in Europe! So even though we will be sunning in Madrid on the 25th, we are still excited about what the German Christmas season will be like this month of December.

I always love Christmas markets. Every year in Paris, I made it a point to stroll each of the big markets (Champs-Elysées, La Défense, Tour Eiffel, etc.) at least once.

Now we're living in the country where Christmas markets originated!

There's a lot to look forward to:

~The rich aroma: meats, chocolates, grilled vegetables, gingerbread. I'm already hungry.

~So much happiness and laughter all around.

~I'm ready for glüwein and waffles!

~The music. I love the continuous Christmas soundtrack!

~The weather may be cold, but the spirit is warm.

~At least three celebrations planned with my awesome team.

~Snow.

Wait, what?!

I know I'm going to regret saying this when it just keeps snowing over and over again, but we've had such beautiful autumn weather this year, that snow actually sounds like it might be fun. We'll see how long the snow lasts, and I'll give my final judgment after it melts. For now: snow is welcome, it's Christmastime!

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6 Reasons You'll Love Europe in the Fall

As we say goodbye to one of the most warm and wonderful autumn seasons in Europe, I thought it fitting to explain why I wholeheartedly believe that fall is the best season to experience what Europe has to offer.

1. Cheaper rates.
Europe has good post-summer tourism discounts like cheaper overnight rates, rental options, and it's a lower season for flight costs. The lowest season for flights is January to March, but who wants to travel then?!

2. Higher probability of good weather.
Fall can last a long time in Western Europe - and so can winter. Spring has a distinct chill to it, and sometimes it is still cold until June! Your best chances at enjoyable warmth and sunshine are during October.

3. Less traffic.
There is way less tourist traffic during autumn, both domestic and international, because most people don't travel in the fall. Everyone is just returning from their summer - and usually August - vacation time, getting back into the swing of normalcy.

4. Most colorful season.
Europe does a really good job of flowering up once summer hits, and those summer accents are usually kept up through October. Fall is the most colorful season with blue skies and and vibrant trees as the leaves change. There may not be any blossoming trees, but their lifespan is much shorter, and come with their own set of problems (see #5).

5. No spring allergies.
Once the many trees and flowers start to bloom in the springtime (anytime between March and May), your allergies will make you miserable, no matter how much fun you try to have. You might want to avoid springtime travel in general, anyway.

6. Fall IS the best season, anyway!
Fall is the best season for the combination of warmth and charm in the Northern Hemisphere, so you may as well spend some of those crisp, sunny days in Europe!

Next time you have the option to choose your vacation days: try them in September and October. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised and make fall your regular holiday time!

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Paris Is About Life

I thought I didn't have much to add to what happened in my favorite city last weekend.

Everything I could say, I thought I'd already said before.

I love Paris. You can read all about that in my eBook, Four Years in Paris. I wish I'd had a hundred years to live there, and not just four. I still feel that way.

True Muslims are not terrorists. You can read my response to the Charlie Hebdo attack last January. My position remains unchanged.

But there's more to say now.

I wish you could have seen the somber look in the eyes of my seventeen-year-old Muslim teammate Saturday morning. Honestly, I had forgotten I had two Muslim teammates because our friendships aren't based on our belief systems.

She gave me a hug and sadly looked up at me. "It [the Koran] tells us ten times to not kill."

"I know. I know it's not your fault. Don't worry, I don't blame the Muslims."

I hate seeing the distrust rising up all around us.

Build walls, they say.

Close borders, they say.

Don't accept refugees, they say.

Keep them out, they say.

What scares me the most?

I don't know how these terror attacks will shift the policies and politics of the European Union. How it will affect immigration and immigrant rights. How it will affect travel between EU countries. How it could potentially develop into something bigger than all of us, and even Americans could have to return to their home country.

Am I scared to return to Paris?

Non.

In fact, I already have plans to do so in the spring.

I wish I could get all preachy about being courageous and living our lives as if nothing happened. While most of us were maybe unable to identify with comic strip writers mocking Islam, we can surely identify with the study abroad student at a café, a group of friends at a concert, and fans at a sporting event.

The dead and injured could have been me. You. My best friend. Any of my university students, volleyball teammates, or Marc's basketball players.

It could have been any of us.

While we can't successfully live in constant fear and paranoia, we must take what's happened as a time to reflect deeply on our reality in 2015.

One of my high school English teachers, wildly eccentric as he may have been, always challenged us with something he called "Eight Questions All Humans Ask." I can only remember six for certain, but he made us answer these at least twice a year. He insisted it was crucial to building our worldview. He was right.

What is real?
What is truth?
Where did we come from?
What is the purpose of life?
What is the difference between right and wrong?
What happens to us after we die?

I think another question was something like, "what is knowledge," and the other one will just remain a mystery for now.

I have another question to add anyway, as a follow-up to each of the above questions.

Why does it matter?

Because if you can't answer where you came from, who you are, why you're here, or where you're going, then you're just drifting along to the chaotic rhythm of a crazy world where anything could happen anywhere to anyone at any time.

Your decisions and reactions have everything to do with your worldview, or lack thereof. Live your life with purpose and meaning, and when your time comes, you'll be ready.

As attached or unattached we may feel to the most recent Paris attacks, we must take the time to be thankful for our lives and the lives around us everyday. This expiring gift of life on Earth is not to be taken for granted.

Please pray for Paris and the rest of the world, and be thankful for your life and freedom this Thanksgiving.

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That Wi-Fi Only Life

I remember arriving in Prague and looking wistfully at my Blackberry.

"Guess you'll just be my alarm clock for a while."

I had some serious reservations about not having a cell phone when I was sent to Belgium from the Czech Republic.

How would I know if I would be picked up from the airport?
Who was picking me up?
How would I know if the people who said they were picking me up were actually the people taking me from the airport?
How would I communicate with anyone?!

When we lived in America, we needed unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, and unlimited data. Marc and I signed up for a joint cell phone bill before we even got married. We were saddled with $200 per month phone bills and thought it was totally normal and part of the monthly budget.

Then I moved to Europe.

Moving across the world made me feel like I could do anything. All of a sudden, all of those previous impossibilities were really now possible because, hello: I just got on a plane with a carry-on and within five days had a new address and job.

Could I play volleyball after college? Yes. Could I live overseas? Yes. Could I learn a new language? Yes. Could I travel solo to new places? Yes. Could I start writing again? Yes. Could I ditch my cell phone? Yes!

Europeans have normal cell phone plans with minutes, messages, and internet. They are not to blame. I'm the rebel who bucked the system as soon as I could say, "Je ne sais pas," to the questions about why I didn't have a cell phone plan.

In Belgium, I passed my days winning volleyball games, Skyping with family and friends, planning trips, going on trips, and blogging about my trips. I felt connected to everyone the entire time. My roommate/teammate communicated any team/coach/club messages I needed to know. I couldn't speak French anyway, what was the point of paying to receive calls and messages I wouldn't understand?

Not even two weeks after my return to California for the summer, my Blackberry died completely. I got through an entire month of directing camps without a cell phone.

My first club in France immediately took me to a cell phone store and got me a prepaid flip phone. I spent some euros on it here and there, but never anything too committal, especially when it became apparent that even when I didn't have any credit, I could still receive calls and texts!

One year, we figured out that our monthly home internet plan included a free cell phone. We still used the ghetto flip phone and sometimes even remembered to turn it on during the day.

(See? I really did used to live by the social laws of the 21st century! I even used to drive!)

The growth of the internet changed everything. I don't think I know anyone who doesn't have internet access at least once a day.

Then, electronics (mostly smartphones) that could access the internet changed everything again. I lived off of an iPod Touch as my primary contact device for three years. How much did I pay per month? Nothing.

And when I deleted Facebook (Could I ever delete Facebook? YES!), the truth became obvious. Not having a real phone plan was about so much more than saving a buck or two.

I prefer communication on my own terms.

I went from being a seventeen-year-old who regularly left my Nokia at home to a twenty-four-year-old who was never more than six inches away from my Blackberry. College social life revolved around our cell phones. My coaching responsibilities insisted I be available at any and all times to any and all persons.

I left America and my phone plan behind and found freedom from all the noise.

I'll admit, living only off wi-fi connections has its inconvenient moments. It usually means I have to arrive places a little bit earlier, have to wait a little bit longer, and get to wonder if the person I'm meeting up with will actually show up and find me.

This drives some people literally crazy. But like all those millions of people (some of them were you, too) from the 1920s to the 1990s, I'm still managing to get picked up at the airport without having a cell phone. It's not a miracle; it's planning!

I'm not trying to convince you to swear off cell phone plans like I have. When I have wi-fi, I use an iPhone to FaceTime, Skype, iMessage, email, and so on, just like everybody else. But as soon as I leave an internet area (which, in Germany, is basically anywhere outside our home), it's a no-call zone.

Some of us are really good about turning our phone off during meetings, dates, church services, family dinners, movies, performances, graduations, when we go to sleep, etc. I was one of those people who was careful to silence my phone, but always wanted to be able to click a button to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

Now I miss a lot of "information." It's quiet, it's peaceful, and it's nice.

Most of us probably won't go canceling that free upgrade on our next billing cycle, but maybe we could let go sometimes, and leave the phone behind. Disconnect for a while, be with people, go outside, and listen to the world around us. All of that pre-technology life is still out there, we just have to try a lot harder to be a part of it.

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German Swag 101: Top 10 Differences

It's like no matter where you live or move to, there are always going to be differences. We experienced differences moving around California, then definitely when we first moved abroad in 2011, and now we're in another new country. We always compare and contrast every new place we live in or even just visit.

While this list is by no means exhaustive, it is the top ten differences we've noticed since moving from France to Germany in August.

1) Cash really is king.

Credit cards, and more specifically, Visa cards, are not readily accepted everywhere. Very rarely in France, and almost never in the USA, did we ever get told, "cash only." We've had to make some "I owe you" payments already.

2) Pedestrians have needs, too.

I talked about this in an earlier post, but I can't get over the lack of attention to pedestrian needs in city landscaping. Sidewalks and crosswalks are happenstance, and for a country where people drive really fast as a rule, I feel like I would be safer running rather than walking.

3) Toilets are not free.

It's really easy to assume that the larger EU countries like France and Germany would have similar service systems. France charges tolls for the freeway, but has excellent rest stops with free bathrooms. Germany has the free and speedy autobahn (freeway), but there aren't great rest stops, and the gas station bathrooms all charge a fee. The lone freedom fighter for free toilets? McDonald's.

4) Neither is the internet.

Again, apparently only McDonald's and Starbucks really know how to fill their restaurants. The almost-everywhere hotspots in France are non-existent in Germany. Finding any wifi signal is difficult enough, then if one appears, it's usually password protected. Scotland and Holland seem to be the only countries who really have the free wifi thing down: every train, bus, station, and other public space is open internet territory. Even German hotels and hostels have had sketchy signals. Any internet entrepreneur who wants to set up affordable and strong wifi could really take over the market here.

5) A water crisis.

The tap water in Germany is great and way under-appreciated. How so? There's not even a hint of a drought and everyone drinks sparking/mineral/gas water! And by everyone, I mean they even drink it during sports practices and games! So we show up to a match, and our team is provided with carbonated water. Danke. In addition, Germany is the only country I've been to where even if you ask for tap water in German, the waiter will bring you bottled water and charge you for it. I prefer water from the sink and it's what I want to drink with my food. Have it your way, Germany: I'm bringing my own water to the restaurant.

6) Meat vs. cheese.

In France, an entire refrigerated wall was devoted to French cheese. "Other cheese" was somewhere else. In Germany, an entire aisle can be devoted to sausage. There is still a variety of cheese, just as in France there was a variety of meat. But the culture shift in taste is very apparent.

7) Bavaria on a budget.

The cost of living (for us, the "cost of living" is basically just food) in little Vilsbiburg is low compared to California and Paris. We have more sport time here and less free time, which ends up being a money saving strategy anyway!

8) Regular clean-up time.

The cities clean the streets and sidewalks! In France, we'd be crunching over at least two years worth of dead leaves every fall. France seemed to believe that Nature would clean up after itself. The autumn leaves have been quickly removed at least once a week the past month. Normal trash doesn't "decorate" public spaces, either.

The leaf collectors in action.

9) Got milk?

We were never really able to drink a glass of milk in France. It tasted strange to us, and we settled for just using it in cereal and coffee. We were amazed to find the milk in German supermarkets to taste relatively "normal" and good with everything. It may sound minor, but after four years of avoiding French milk, it's really nice to sit down to a glass of milk with cookies (because we have a real oven now, too).

10) How to say hello.

I know it was weird and awkward when I first arrived in the land of cheek-kisses. Belgium broke me in with single kisses, then France doubled up on us and I really grew accustomed to it. The Germans are all about the handshake and hug, and here I am feeling awkward again in a case of classic reverse culture shock. (Notes: handshaking on initial introduction is still totally normal. Hugging my teammates is still totally normal.) All of Marc's basketball dudes were shaking my hand every time we saw each other, and I felt like we were closing a merger or agreeing on a real estate venture. The Californian in me was screaming, "We're all friends here, not business associates!" While I will miss the Parisian "bisous" probably forever, I've found a happy balance with high-fives for now. If you're reading this and you've shaken my hand, I'll high-five you soon like it's no big deal.

There are other broader differences, too; like the ease in which we applied for our immigration paperwork, less cigarette smokers but more beer drinkers, and how many people speak decent English. No matter where we are living, there are things we are going to miss from previous places and new things we are going to enjoy. For now, we get to enjoy the clean outdoors and an abundance of milk and meat. Different can definitely be good.

High-five!

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