Ten years in Germany

Autumn marked ten years since I first moved to Germany (and started this blog!). That means over a quarter of my life has been spent in a foreign country and continent, which is longer than I can say I’ve lived in any single U.S. state. It’s clear to me I am not the person I was in 2015. But why? What is it that makes a person, and what makes us change? Is it the places and cultures and eras we inhabit, or the people we attach ourselves to, or the capricious winds of our own souls pushing us this way and that as we learn more about ourselves and the world…?  Come along as I make a reflective case study of myself, from then until now.

Freiburg. Autumn 2015. 
Age: 28
Total higher-ed degrees: 1 

I rode my fifth-hand wreck of a bicycle from my dorm room, where I shared a kitchen and bath with 12 other students, to class in a building that looked like a castle to my American eye. I attended my daily Master’s courses in body if not entirely in spirit, which was usually floating around somewhere thinking about the afternoon’s party plans or last weekend’s party plans or maybe even next weekend’s. The five intervening years between my bachelor’s graduation and beginning of my Master’s program had been a rude awakening, where I’d worked back-breaking biology field jobs in the summer and soul-crushing retail jobs in winter, and where I’d been one half of a long-term, ultimately-failed relationship that was a catalyst for moving abroad in the first place. Embraced again in the cocoon of academic life, with all its possibilities and youthfulness and goals determined for me by others, I was possessed by a manic sense of freedom. Chasing hedonism and my new friends around the city took precedence over all else, even over the lure of knowledge, which remains my preferred currency. And to have this manic second-wind take place in Europe? I was in love from day one. In love with the city, in love with the life, in love with anything and anyone new. 

Day 1 of my Master’s course. Excuse the goofy expression, it was 2015. / One of my beautiful “city wrecks” (no comment on who crashed it).

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Freiburg. Autumn 2025. 
Age: 38 
Total degrees: 4 

I ride my new e-bike from my single apartment in a Black Forest valley to my city-center job. I’ve worked at the university for a few years now, but some mornings as I ascend the hallowed stairs, I am still dumbfounded to find myself here: A doctor working in a Hapsburg-founded university building that’s existed on this spot since 1457, teaching international Master’s students in the same program I once attended, leading courses alongside the very same professors who taught me. The topics are a little different now: I’m teaching forest genetics, which was never even mentioned during my own Forest Sciences program, and AI is a hot topic among teachers and students alike as we try to figure out how best to work with it. I run my daily data analyses in both body and spirit (usually), and I cherry-pick the weekend activities I actually want to do instead of being a yes-woman in hopes everyone will like me. My carefully curated friend circle is mainly nerdy academic types who don’t drink much, and although they’re a flight risk given the short-term nature of academic work contracts, I try to not take it personally. While I’m chronically single and never got the hang of Tinder&co (probably safer for everyone now that I teach university students), I’m unbothered. These days I do my best to pursue self-care rather than that dangerous addiction people call “being in love.”

Day 2,038 (seriously) of my PhD journey, cuddling my printed dissertation. / Freiburg in 2025 winter splendor.

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As I’m sure you could guess from your own life experiences, the 10-year path between these timepoints was anything but direct. Mine looks like a ball of yarn, torn apart by a certain orange kitten. My journey from Freiburg to Freiburg had detours through Argentina, Canada, the U.S. There were those black-hole pandemic years. I crashed at my parents’ house for 6 months between degrees, which was a culture shock to us all. There were days my imposter syndrome told me to quit everything and days my delighted inner child couldn’t imagine doing anything else. And then through some combination of luck and will, I landed back in Freiburg, where I was shocked to find both it and I were different. Or was it just me? It was true some of the shops were different, and my academic friends had all flown the coop, and by that point I’d grown out of losing all my dignity on the Elpi dance floor. But the changes were deeper than that. So what exactly caused these changes in me between point A and point B, and what are the forces still pulling me in other directions as I keep moving forward to point C?

Let’s start with the obvious and ask what impact a decade of mostly-German life has had on me. While I’m still a reluctant cook, I’ve developed a taste for pumpkin soups and sauerkraut. I take my water with gas now, thank you, and spicy mustard instead of ketchup on my bratwurst, which are usually veg[etari]an because climate-change peer-pressure here is real. Strangers’ crooked teeth and cold shoulders and stares no longer catch my attention. Public nudity is just a fashion choice, although seeing wild German sausages on the riverbank at 9 a.m. during my ride to work still makes me blink. I happily partake in the national pasttime of walking to nowhere and everywhere. I speak English slower and simpler now, to help others understand. Pronunciations of certain English words have taken on a German spice (like actually), which mingles weirdly with the syrupy Deep South accent that still clings to some of my other words (like higher and seven). My grasp of the German language is tenuous at best, and never again will I judge a traveler or immigrant for struggling with a foreign language. On that note, I altogether stopped using the word “expat” when I realized I equated it with someone who was running away rather than towards. It sure would be nice if “immigrant” wasn’t such a loaded word these days though.

There were deeper changes that probably can’t be attributed to place alone, so what effects have ten years of plain life experience had? With practice, it’s become easier for me to slide into a flow state, and to self-motivate instead of waiting for others to hand me pre-determined goals. I’ve learned that acts of self-care like cleaning the kitchen before bed make me feel a whole lot better than the hollow dopamine hits I get from doomscrolling, which isn’t to say I’ve kicked the habit yet, just that I’ve seen the light. I can set healthy boundaries for myself and not see them as prison bars needing to be escaped. Alcohol has taken its rightful place as an occasional toy rather than a chaotic copilot. I’ve figured out that kindness and niceness are not the same, and that only the latter is optional. The last part was almost certainly a lesson learned from the Germans.

Of course, not everything has changed. I still love traveling through foreign places and curating a modest collection of useless nerdy things, especially now that I have my own space. I write and paint and read and cross-stitch. I am still equally mystified by humans and drawn to their stories. I’m still a night-owl introvert trying to survive an early-bird extravert world. I’m still sensitive, more than I’d like to be, and gentler with myself over that fact than I was in the past.

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Thinking out now, ahead and towards the future, why do I want to stay? German culture is one you can sink your teeth into, rich with shared history and an assured sense of self, which young immigrant-driven cultures like the US haven’t had time to grow yet. You ask a German where their ancestors came from and they’ll probably look confused because their ancestors were born in the very same village as they were. Vineyard-soaked castle ruins and medieval streets are still shockingly beautiful to me. My flabbers are still gasted that I can go see those ruins and streets without needing to own a car or take a plane, and by choice, I only drive a few days a year now. I like that bakeries and shops usually have cute dogs calmly waiting outside. I like that grocery shopping is a daily sport because people like buying fresh food, and they usually only buy what they can physically carry home in their backpacks or saddlebags. The social policies afford me near-free diabetic supplies and safe infrastructure even as a non-citizen, and having that kind of support (for everyone) is worth the 30% tax rate. It’s true that German strangers might only give an unsolicited “Hallo” when they’re cashiering or safely ensconced in the woods, but it feels more genuine to my introverted soul than the draining small talk I encounter in the States. 

Of course, life here isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Nowhere is. I wish the process of turning German acquaintances into friends took a few months rather than a few years (if ever). The bureaucracy rumors are true and I dread every trip I have to make to the immigration office. I have to regularly remind myself that high-speed train travel is awesome rather than dwelling on Deutsche Bahn’s endless delays that have begun to feel personal. And there are hundreds of tiny cultural differences that sometimes take me by surprise. Go to the grocery store any day before any holiday, and you’ll find every German stocking up like a hurricane is coming, and that eggs and lettuce are sold out by 5 p.m.! And I’m afraid I’ll never understand Europeans’ universal fear that trees will spontaneously fall on their heads. 

So if we must compare apples to skyscrapers, what do I miss about the U.S.? My American family and friends always top the list. It’s a constant tug-of-war between the guilt of being so far away, wanting to visit more often, and justifying the brutal carbon price attached to transatlantic flights. Second is the near-endless wilderness of my motherland. In North America, you could walk into the woods and never be seen again. Even then you wouldn’t be lonely, since you’d meet hundreds of birds and insects and animals along the way. In Germany, you can only get so lost in the monoculture forests before a village or farmhouse or forest restaurant appears, and biodiversity has suffered for it. Third, I miss proper dill pickles. German pickles are a crime against humanity.

Come Autumn 2035, who and where will I be? No really, I’m looking for ideas. As you can maybe tell from my colorfully-woven past, I’m not exactly a lady with a 10-year plan. I won’t even know what I’ll eat for lunch tomorrow until I go on my daily shopping trip. I think I’d like to stay here if they’ll have me, and I’m waiting for my German language test results to see what my options are for more permanent EU residency. I’m simultaneously eyeballing the end date of my short-term work contract and wondering what I’ll do next. As a human, I’ll admit I’m still not fully baked. I’m still walking the path I hope leads towards unconditional kindness, I’m still a recovering doomscroller, I’m still learning German language and customs. I’m still learning who I am. I’m still learning…