Our Love Story, part 5

Chapter 5: Our Year in Europe

(During my mostly self-imposed quarantine, I will be sharing a series of stories about how the relationship developed between Esther, a young woman from Switzerland, and me. Here are the other chapters so far: Chapter 1: The Encounter, Chapter 2: The Courtship Chapter 3: Meeting the Family  Chapter 4: The Wedding )

I was sitting on a train between Basel, Switzerland, and Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany. As I listened to other passengers talk in what seemed like a myriad of languages, and watched the German countryside fly past me, I had to pinch myself to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. It was even better than the scenes I had remembered from movies shot in Europe. I was now living the dream! The dream of Europe and the dream of marrying a very special person.

This was the first time I was on my own without Esther’s help since I arrived in Europe about three weeks earlier. I was both apprehensive and excited. I was heading to study German at the Goethe Institute for three months. Once again, our relationship had to continue from a distance. It was about a three-and-a-half-hour trip by train. As soon as my classes let out on Friday afternoon, I would hop on a train and head for Switzerland to be with my beloved and return to Freiburg as late as possible on Sunday evening. I was preparing myself for a year in Europe, mostly in Switzerland, by learning German. I was also preparing myself for the wedding, all in German, coming up in fewer than four months.

There are 13 Goethe Institutes within Germany and 159 throughout the world. They have a reputation of being the finest places to learn German. Most of the German ones are located near a university where international students can prepare themselves for university studies with proficiency in the German language. This was the case in Freiburg. In my class we had a mixture of prospective university students and others like myself who were interested in learning German for a variety of reasons. I remember students from Japan, Chile, Belgium, Turkey, France, Australia, and the former Yugoslavia.

We lived in a brand new “Studentenheim” (dormitory) which was part of the University of Freiberg system. We also could eat in the university “Mensa” (cafeteria) at student prices if we so desired. The dorm was divided into suites, each consisting of two bedrooms and a separate bathroom. The two students shared a common kitchen. My roommate was from the former Yugoslavia. I don’t remember which ethnic group or language he was from, but of course I didn’t speak it, and he spoke no English. To communicate with each other we had to use German, our only common language. Sadly, he was more interested in seducing the women in the building than learning German.

As the train sped along the mostly flat countryside, I carefully studied the packet of materials I received from the Institute to try to orient myself to what I was going to do when the train arrived in Freiburg. Luckily, the Institute was almost directly across the street from the main train station. The dormitory was about a 20-minute walk from the Institute, mostly along the Dreisam River. The university cafeteria was nearer to the Institute, but in a different direction. To get there we had to go through the “Altstadt” (old, preserved downtown area with only pedestrians allowed), a rather lovely walk.

I decided to eat my main meal of the day at noon, like most Europeans. I would buy that at the university cafeteria, then eat breakfast and supper at the dormitory. That consisted mostly of coffee with bread and sweet spreads for breakfast, and bread, cold cuts and cheese. This system worked well for me, since I didn’t need to cook a hot meal, and was typical of what and how the Germans themselves ate.

Since the distances weren’t too great, I walked to get from place to place. I did this for two reasons, I was afraid I’d get lost navigating the public transportation system, and it saved me money. I walked more during those three months than I can ever remember walking before. That combined with a fairly limited food intake, caused me to lose a good bit of weight. Just in time to fit into a well-tailored wedding suit in a few months.

The train came to a screeching halt in Freiburg. I grabbed my bag, too heavy and clumsy for walking very far, and got off the train to survey the scene. I felt a little more at home than when I alit from the airplane in Frankfurt, but things were still intimidating. It didn’t take me long to discover how to cross the numerous tracks separating the platform I was on and the street which I assumed was the one the Goethe Institute was on. I followed the people! There were underground paths and overhead bridges. The whole city seemed to be set up for pedestrians and public transportation. There were city buses, inter-city buses, trolleys and taxis, all with curbside service from the train station. In addition, there was a huge bike garage. It was packed with bicycles.

I found the Institute quickly, registered and took a German placement test. I was placed in Intermediate II, which I thought might be too advanced for me. I soon got used to the routine of class in the morning, lunch at the university cafeteria, studying in the afternoon, sometimes at the university library, and sometimes at home. There were ample opportunities to party among the students at the Institute, but for the most part I wasn’t interested. I spent my evenings listening to my portable shortwave radio and dreaming about the weekends with Esther.

I made several good friends in my class at the Institute. The woman from Chile and I spent breaks speaking Spanish. It was so nice to be able to communicate in a foreign language that I felt comfortable as opposed to German. She made friends with a Japanese woman, so I also spent time with her. She spoke her German with the same lilt as her Japanese. Then there was a man from Belgium, Matthias (pronounced Mattias with no “th” sound). For some reason, his demeanor really appealed to me. I was so impressed with him, that when Esther and I had a son, I lobbied to name him Mattias.

I am an avid baseball fan, especially for the forlorn Phillies of Philadelphia, the losingest team in the history of baseball. As luck would have it, they made the playoffs and the won the World Series that year, the first time in my lifetime. With no Internet or the MLB AtBat App, I was dependent on Armed Forces Radio for any information I could get. However, search as I may on my shortwave radio, I could not find a signal. It might not have mattered anyway, since I was in Europe and the games were broadcast at 2am and were usually over by the time I got up. I would buy the International Herald Tribune, a daily English language newspaper with a sports section dedicated to US sports. Problem was, the games were going on when the papers were printed, so I had to wait an extra day to find out the score! Oh, the sacrifices one makes for the love of their life!

source

Other than romancing during the weekends when we were together, the main task for Esther and me was to make invitations for our wedding and send them out. At the time, the custom was to make the invitations by hand. We were taken by Michelangelo’s painting “Hands of God and Adam” in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. We depicted that on the front of the invitation with black-colored pieces of straw (see photo). We also had a star on the invitation to represent Christmas which was two days prior to our wedding. To this day we have a huge painting of Michelangelo’s “Hands of Adam and God” hung above our bed. 

Our handmade wedding invitations in both
German and English

During my weekend trips to Langnau, we attended the Mennonite Church to get to know the people in the church. It was not easy, despite of my enthusiasm for my heritage and faith. Everything read or sung was done in High German, while the worship leading, and sermon were in the Swiss dialect. Sometimes the accent of the readers was so Swiss that I couldn’t tell if they were using the standard German or the dialect. Another challenge was to break through the patterns and friendships that were already established at the congregation. People did not rush up to greet us and invite us in. With a few exceptions, we felt like strangers and pilgrims. It was worse when Esther had to work, which she often did on weekends. I don’t know if it was the shoes I wore, but they smelled a foreigner immediately. Later I learned that most couldn’t speak English and they didn’t think I spoke German. How pleasantly surprised we were when they came out in force for our wedding and how many participated in the choir that sang for us.

After the wedding (See: Chapter 4: The Wedding ) our first priority was to find a decent apartment. Esther had been living in a one-room basement studio apartment which was no larger than the living room in the house we currently live in. It contained a kitchenette. She had a single bed and a futon for her sofa, which converted into a bed for me to sleep in. There was a dining room table in the middle of the room. There was barely room for four people around the table. The bathroom and bomb shelter were down the hall.

The housing market in Switzerland has always been very tight. We were quite lucky to find a two-bedroom apartment right across the street from where we were living. The address will forever be etched in my mind: Kreuzstrasse 49, Langnau i.E. It was within walking distance of Esther’s workplace; a nursing home where she worked as a nurse.

Another challenge for us was to find furniture. Furnishing a home or an apartment in Switzerland is very expensive. At the time, couples often bought the best available, thinking they would keep the same furnishings for many years. Our situation was a bit more tenuous, so we didn’t want to outfit our apartment with expensive furniture. We found a number of alternatives. Esther’s father found an old wardrobe (not many built-in closets in Switzerland) at a used furniture store, and we found a used living room suite, and other relatives chipped in with some odds and ends that they were no longer using. The only new items we bought were beds and mattresses. Slowly but surely, our apartment felt like home.

The next challenge was for me to find a job. As I stated in other places, because of the language and new culture, I was totally dependent on Esther. This included getting our marriage license, registering our names with the town hall, getting my residency established and other necessary paperwork. I was not used to being so helpless and not in control of my own destiny. I was a great lesson in humility.

My first purchase with my own money.

Not only was I dependent on Esther for all the paperwork necessary for our existence together, but I was also dependent on her for money. My savings had pretty much run out with my language school and weekend trips to Switzerland. However, with the very first Swiss Francs I earned I bought a Neuchâtel wall clock. I had seen these clocks hanging in living rooms all over Switzerland. I fell in love with them and decided I wanted one. It still hangs on our living room wall.

I was also dependent on Esther to help me find a job. We first looked to the school system, since I wanted to continue teaching. My work permit was very limiting, however, and I could not become a permanent citizen until I had worked seven years in Switzerland. The schools were very friendly but assured me that my teaching credentials would have to be updated to Swiss standards, and that I would have to become a citizen before they would consider me. Wow, seven years! I felt like Jacob having to wait for Rachel!

So, Esther started inquiring with language institutes which had looser standards for their teachers. They were impressed with my CV but many of them told her that I was overqualified. I was beginning to get discouraged. This was before my writing days and we had no TV or internet, so I was getting bored and restless. Finally, she found a language school in Bern, 30 or 45 minutes away by train, that would hire me to teach English as a second language. I had wanted to continue teaching Spanish, but they replied that they only hired native speakers to teach. They taught some 20 languages including Spanish and English, both American and British.

The school was named Inlingua, and had its own methodology which the new instructor had to learn. They offered both class and individual instruction; the classes were usually held in the evening. I was given one evening class, two nights a week, to prove my worth, and was soon assigned another. When a Swiss army officer who was assigned to a UN post on the DMZ between the two Koreas requested American English, much to the chagrin of my British colleagues, I was assigned to him. He wanted three hours of instruction, five days a week for three months. Since I had to learn a new methodology, I had to spend numerous hours in preparation. My mornings were filled with lesson planning and afternoons and two evenings a week teaching. It was grueling, but I really loved getting to know the wide variety of people who came to the language school, both colleagues and students.

One of my colleagues was a refugee and poet from dictator Franco’s Spain. He taught the Spanish courses. We spent a significant amount of time speaking Spanish with each other during breaks and other events, and after three months, the director of the school took me aside and told me that if the need arose, he would assign me to a Spanish class. I left that day walking on air. He had somehow come to the conclusion that my Spanish was good enough for his “native speakers only” rule.

At precisely 12:30, when the National Swiss Radio broadcast gave their five beeps to mark the time to begin the news, I would leave the apartment to walk to the train station. It took about 15 minutes. Esther and I would eat lunch together. She had enough time off for lunch that she could walk home to eat with me before I left. My train ride took me through the western part of the Emmental Valley stopping in such quaint towns as Signau, Bowil, Zäziwil, before arriving in Konolfingen. The “Schnellzug” (fast train) only stopped once in Konolfingen before arriving in Bern and saved me 15 minutes. However, on the way to Bern, the most convenient train for me was the “Regionalzug” (regional train) which stopped in all these picturesque towns. One of the benefits of the Regionalzug was hearing the local dialect. I would listen intently as little old ladies would board the train in one town and get off at the next one, gossiping away. I was soon able to catch most of what they were saying, and slowly built my vocabulary and pronunciation of the dialect and filed it away in my brain. Interestingly, the most frequently used words and verb conjugations were the ones that were the most radically different from written (High) German. The larger the word, having learned the pattern, the easier it was to guess how to say it in the dialect.

Early on I vowed that I would learn Esther’s family’s dialect, Bern German (Switzerland has over 250 different regional dialects, and even Bern German is divided into various dialects). When they spoke to me in written German, they were stiff and formal, like they were reading out of a textbook. When they spoke to each other in their dialect, they were themselves and laughed uproariously at each other’s jokes. I wanted to be included. It reminded me of some of my relatives who spoke Pennsylvania Dutch (German) and roared at the jokes they told. When I asked them to translate for me, it wasn’t half as funny in English as it seemed to them in their dialect.

After about three months of riding the train to Bern, I started using the dialect when I was with Esther’s family. At first, they didn’t catch on and answered me in written German. Soon their eyes widened in amazement when they realized I was communicating with them in their dialect. They never expected that to happen. I also remember the first time I went into a shop in Bern to purchase something and asked for it in the dialect. The clerk responded back in dialect instead of either answering me in English or written German. I felt that my use of the dialect had turned a significant corner.

Esther and I made it a practice to go out for dinner on Friday evenings. We continue this tradition to this day, from Switzerland to Kansas to Virginia and Mexico. These times were wonderful, but also made for some cultural faux pas. One evening we went to what turned out to be one of the fancier restaurants in Langnau; white tablecloth, expensive silverware and china. I know I ordered pasta alfredo with some cut of pork and string beans. A waitress served us very daintily what seemed to me to be very small portions. She left whatever remained of our order on the table. It didn’t take me long to finish what she had served, so I reached out to the bowls with the rest of the string beans and pasta to serve myself. No sooner then I lifted the bowel off the table, then the waitress came charging over to our table with a huge scowl on her face to take the bowl out of my hands and serve me. Little did I know that I was to wait for her to serve me. I felt like a country bumpkin. Truth be told, Esther didn’t know either. That was the last time we ate in that restaurant.

Once we ate at a restaurant near the train station in Langnau. It was not fancy at all. I quickly found something on the menu that suited my fancy. When the waitress came to our table, in my broken German I haltingly ordered what I wanted. Then it was Esther’s turn. She ordered “Wurstsalad” which was like potato salad with sausage slices in it. There was also the option of including chunks of cheese in it. Esther was studying the menu to be sure that the salad was what she wanted when the waitress asked her, “with cheese?” When Esther didn’t respond immediately, the waitress, assuming we were foreigners because of my interactions with her, took in a huge breath, hoisting her ample bosom high in the air and asked very slowly and deliberately, “W I T H   C H E E S E?” Esther answered her in perfect dialect, “No, without cheese please.” The expression on the waitress’ face was priceless.

On another occasion, Esther joined me in Bern after my afternoon English sessions to go out to eat. I had seen this Argentine-themed restaurant on my way to work every day, called Churrasco. I was quite hungry for anything Latin American at the time, so we decided to go there. One of the features on the menu was corn on the cob. Now the Swiss do not each much corn except to add a little canned corn to certain salads, so my hunger to order corn, especially corn on the cob, was quite tempting. I ordered it to go along with my steak. It came with those little corn ear-shaped holders to stick into either side of the ear. I eagerly and hungrily bit into this treat from my culture. Suddenly, I felt the eyes of someone in the restaurant staring at me. They bore right through me. When I caught her gaze, I couldn’t have been more nonplused. She was a very fancily dressed middle-aged woman who had the most disgusted look on her face that I could ever imagine. I have seldom felt more mortified in my life. Apparently for some Europeans, I was committing two unforgivable sins. First and foremost, I was eating with my hands. Secondly, I was eating corn, which is considered by many to be pig food. Even though it was offered on the menu, and included proper holders for the corn, my desire for corn was quickly quashed.

By now I had become proficient in the dialect and had a job. Esther had a job she loved and enjoyed the times she could be with her family. We enjoyed where we lived and most of what Switzerland had to offer us. However, my year-long leave of absence from Hesston College was coming to an end. The job I had, although fun, was not really a long-term solution for me, and I had really loved the four years I had taught at Hesston. We were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do we stay in Switzerland and wait the seven years for me to become a citizen and get the necessary certification to become a teacher in Switzerland? This was probably the hardest decision of our married life. Ultimately it came down to my need for fulfilling employment. Esther’s skills were needed everywhere. We decided to return to the States.

Next Chapter: Our Return to the USA