Returning to America

My flight with Lufthansa landed at Ohare Airport around 10:00pm Wednesday night. Exhausted from no sleep and emotionally wrung out, I found my parents, we collected my bags and I said my "thanks you's" and "goodbyes." The long drive home was quiet, except for questions from my parents. Ten minutes into the drive, fatigue overtook me and I fell fast asleep in the back seat of my father's '76 Chevy Station Wagon.
Jet lag and the seven-hour time difference had finally gotten the best of me. I woke briefly when we arrived at home and stayed awake long enough to change my clothes, thank my parents for the trip and climb into bed. Sleep was my saviour, my respite and my escape from 11:30pm that dark Wednesday night until 5pm Thursday evening. Then I climbed drousily out of bed, ate dinner and visited with my parents and brother and promptly went back to sleep again at 10pm.

Thursday morning I rose with the sun, poured myself a cup of black coffee and sat down with my English-German dictionary to write Mario a letter. My German was so basic I had to look up each word, one at a time, and write down whatever translation the dictionary provided. In retrospect, my letter must have been a garbled mess of nonsensical German gibberish. The one page letter took me more than two hours to write. The process was painstaking but it was a labor of love.

My letter was deposited into the outgoing mail slot, then I nervously walked back to the house to approach my parents with the ideas I'd formulated regarding how to get back to Germany. You see, rather than sleep on the flight back home, I had spent hours thinking of ways I could convince my parents to let me return. After considering numerous possibilities, I had come up with what I considered to be two viable options:

Option #1) Convince my parents that I would be a much more serious student in Germany than I was in America because I felt less stressed in Germany, was more readily accepted by my peers and was genuinely interested in learning the language and the culture as well as all the normal lessons. Given these considerations I expected my parents to at least acknowledge the validity of my points and, hopefully, just send me back to Germany, as soon as possible, allowing me to stay for the remainder of my education.

Option #2) The teachers were already planning a return trip to Germany in the spring and it would be a chance to be reunited with Mario so we could make plans and avoid being separated again. If all else failed, I hoped and prayed this would be my chance.

Had my parents owned a crystal ball and been able to see into my near future, they might have consented to allowing me to go back to Germany immediately and stay for as long as I liked. Knowing the outcome of my remaining time at West Chicago Community High School, I believe it's fair to say I would have had a greater chance for success, not to mention happiness, at Eringerfeld. When I think about it, I can only wonder and speculate how different my life would have been if things had worked out that way. But life works out the way it does for a reason.

My parents were not quick to receive either of my ideas, though they said they would consider a return trip in the spring if I could cover the cost. That one little kernal of hope was enough to breathe new life into me and I sprang into action, first writing Mario a second, nonsensical letter then starting to look for a job. Despite the fact that spring was eight months away, the knowledge that there was a way back to Mario was enough to boost my spirit and motivate me to do the very best I could at school, home and work once I got a job.

Two weeks later the school year began and I had gotten a job as a bus girl at a local restaurant. My plan to return to Germany was moving in the right direction and everything was falling into place. I sent Mario a third letter, excitedly telling him of my plan to come back and sent the letter off. It was the third letter I'd written him in the two weeks since I'd returned home.

The first week of school was uneventful. Then at the beginning of the second week of school, I ran into one of the boys, Dave, who had gone on the trip to Germany with me. Dave and I exchanged small talk about classes and then he asked me if I'd heard the news about the next trip to Germany. When I told him I hadn't heard anything, he responded that the teachers had decided to go to a different school on the next trip, in a completely different part of Germany. It was a well-known fact that our teachers had not cared for the host teacher in Germany, feeling he was rude and snobbish. Rather than deal with him again, they'd decided to go to a different school during the spring trip.

My heart dropped as I stood there, my feet cemented in place as I listened to Dave's words. "We have to talk to the teachers," I exclaimed to Dave. Dave had no obligation to me. He hadn't known me before the trip and we didn't have any classes together now. But out of the entire group of nineteen students who had gone on the trip to Germany, Dave was the only one willing to go with me to meet with the teachers and administration so we could plead our case for going back to Eringerfeld. In the end, the decision stood and the trip was planned for the next group of exchange students to spend one month at a school in Germany, located about 200 miles away from Eringerfeld. Sadly, we learned later that there was to be a different host teacher at Eringerfeld on the next trip; one who had been a favorite amongst us all, including our teachers. But by the time we learned this, it was too late. Plans had already been made with the other school and it was too late to change them.

Each day became part of a cycle of waking up, going to school, going through the motions of life, checking the mailbox for letters from Mario and going to bed at night so I could do it all over again the next day. Sadness was my constant companion and I lived to hear from Mario. I needed his reassurance that we would work things out. I needed his love. I needed to feel connected to him, even if it was just through words. Even if I didn't understand the words.

Days passed by and turned into weeks and soon September was gone. Not one letter from Mario arrived. I checked the mailbox everyday afterschool, sure that his letter would be waiting for me. But it never was.

"Why isn't he writing me?" I wondered. As more days passed by I stopped asking myself "why" and began to simply tell myself he wasn't going to write back. Maybe he had decided he didn't love me anymore. Maybe I was too far away...out of sight, out of mind. Maybe he'd found a new girlfriend. Or maybe he'd never loved me in the first place. And, at the end of October 1980, I decided that was the reason I never heard from Mario after I left Eringerfeld...he had never loved me in the first place. Call it self-preservation. Call it the only way I knew how to move on from the feelings of sadness, loneliness and abandonment. But I decided that Mario had forgotten all about me and resumed his normal life the day I left Eringerfeld. Somehow, he had found a way to go on without giving me another thought. Whether it was out of grief or the fact that I was "out of sight, out of mind", Mario had allowed life to go on. And, indeed, as the clock ticked and time moved forward, slowly but surely, life moved on, too.

Goodbye

Suitcases and duffel bags stood in a growing mound at the back of the bus. This time around we had a nicer bus; not a motor coach or anything fancy, but one that had a luggage compartment and all four wheels firmly attached. The bus driver spoke to our two American teachers and gestured to us students to set our belongings on the suitcase pile. Going through the motions of putting down my suitcases seemed to make what was about to transpire irrevocably official and walking the ten feet from where I stood with Mario to the back of the bus where the suitcases were stacked was like walking over a bridge to The Point of No Return.

My suitcases stood to the far side of the pile, opposite of where the bus driver had begun loading bags into the luggage compartment beneath the bus. As if frozen and unable to move, a group of us stood there and watched the bus driver loading up the bags. Though we new, well in advance, this day would come, the moment seemed very surreal.

Frau Strohm, our teacher from America, broke the silence with her announcement that it was time to say goodbye. I turned to Mario and looked into his eyes. Had he said anything to me in that moment, the words would have fallen on deaf ears. My heart beat so loudly it was the only sound I could hear. Until that moment, the sadness of knowing we would have to part had been my constant companion, but I'd held myself together and kept my composure in the hopes that I would receive some sort of last minute reprieve from having to go back home.

But as Mario pulled me close and I buried my face in his shirt, the dam broke loose and my tears fell like a torrential rainstorm that had been waiting to break free. Heaving sobs wracked my body as my heart broke into a million bits and fell, piece by piece, to the cobblestone beneath my feet. In a moment where I should have been telling Mario how much I loved him, that we would be together again, that I would do everything I could to come back, I was unable to make the words come out. The pain of saying goodbye and leaving the one to whom my heart belonged was more than I was prepared to handle. I held onto Mario as if my next breath depended upon it and as I did, he stroked my hair and whispered "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."

Frau Strohm informed us it was time to go. Mario kissed me one last time and we let each other go. Our eyes met once more before I climbed onto the bus with the rest of my American classmates. From my seat by the window I could see the sadness in Mario's face. The beautiful smile and laughing eyes I'd fallen in love with had been replaced by an expression of one who was terribly hurt and lost. Our eyes stayed locked as the bus driver shifted the bus into gear and slowly lurched forward. The deafening silence on the bus was pierced by my sobs and the cries of a few of the other girls and I watched Mario fade from view until he was completely out of sight.
The bus traveled down the grassy hill that had brought us up to the grounds of Eringerfeld just a few short weeks before. Green countryside and small farms dotted the landscape on either side of the road as made our way from the gravel road toward civilization. Tears fell freely from my eyes as my mind pictured a sweet German boy a few miles back, standing alone in the middle of a cobblestone courtyard, surrounded by the remnants of my heart. A quiet gasp escaped my lips as I thought of Mario, alone at Eringerfeld. In the midst of my sadness, the surreal feeling surrounding my departure from the place that felt like home, and leaving behind the boy who held my heart, I realized I had forgotten one very important thing. I had never said "goodbye."

August 26th, 1980

Still nestled snuggly under the covers, I opened one eye enough to form a narrow slit through which to determine if it was morning. The light in the dormitory room assured me that morning had arrived. My head turned to the left, as it had each morning for a month, to see if my roommate was still asleep in her bed and she was. An American foreign exchange student, like me, she'd been a terrific roommate. We hadn't known each other prior to the trip as she was a year ahead of me in high school, and we wouldn't stay in touch after our return to America. But she was kind, funny with classic good looks that reminded me of the movie stars from 1940s films. When I'd run out of duetsche marks, German money, she happily bought some of my belongings I had decided to sell in an effort to have spending money for the rest of my stay. She was a good listener and a good friend...calm, happy, cared about others, not much of a party animal. She'd have made a good sister.

Not yet ready to climb out of bed and fully acknowledge the day, I rolled over on my right side only to be greeted by the sight of my suitcases, packed and neatly piled up along the wall. The old, worn bags, borrowed from my father, served as a glaring reminder of what day it was: it was Tuesday, August 26th, 1980. Today was the day we were to leave Germany for the long trip back to America.

An hour later, showered and hungry, a group of American and German students gathered in the dormitory hallway to walk to breakfast together. As was to be expected, the mood was somber and quiet. The girls said little and the boys, uncomfortable with the silence, cracked jokes on occasion which were met by polite laughter and quickly followed by deeper silence.

Mario and I sat next to each other at the breakfast table with our knees touching. It was just another normal Tuesday for those who had not developed a friendship with any of the American foreign exchange students. These groups of students talked, laughed and clamored on in an attempt to prolong breakfast and put off the start of the school day. For those of us who were departing that day and the German friends with whom we'd formed a close bond, there would be no school day. Only carrying our suitcases back to the rickety old bus that had brought us to the school campus a few short weeks earlier and saying our goodbyes.

As we all walked back toward the dormitory after the usual breakfast of coffee and toast smeared with Nutella, I looked around at the school campus I had grown to love and a feel as much a part of as anyone who had been there for years. I smiled and glanced at Mario as we walked past "Goose Poop Hill" off to our right. In the distance sat The Cantina, where we'd gone for cokes and snacks. At this early hour it sat empty, but in my mind I could hear the sounds of laughter as I remembered all the hours spent sitting there afterschool with American and German friends, alike.

The old castle that now formed the administrative building at Eringerfeld sat at the forefront of the campus as if to beckon those who passed by. Though the students didn't spend a lot of time inside the castle, its presence was warm and welcoming, as if it had extended an open invitation to become a part of its history, while quietly and subtley becoming a part of yours.

Concrete sidewalk paved the way towards the cobblestone courtyard where we'd first made our entrance as the new American foreign exchange students, arriving for our stay at the Internat Schloss Eringerfeld. Though the courtyard sat empty, I remembered how full and lively it had been the evening we arrived and the cheers that greeted us as we were introduced, one by one. To this day, I can feel the electricity in the air as I stood at the top of the stairs, in front of the castle, along with all the other American students, looking out over the crowd. As each of our names were called, we waved to the German students and walked down the stairway leading into the courtyard, amidst welcoming cheers.

Before heading back to the dorm, I looked toward the pub where Mario, myself and our friends had spent many hours together. The pub was a special place to me. We had our regular seating area, ordered the same things each time we went...french fries and beer...and the one and only picture of Mario and I was taken in that pub by my roommate. Prior to leaving, she'd had her film developed and had given one copy of the picture to Mario and one copy to me.

It was at the pub, one night early in our stay, that we'd been introduced to the Stiefel. Stiefel is the German word for "boot" and the Stiefel was a large, glass boot, filled with beer. When anyone ordered a Stiefel, it meant party time and an evening of cheers, accompanied by the amusing dance of being egged on by peers, followed by scootching back in your chair and shying away from the tall, amber liquid-filled boot. The Stiefel was for the serious or formidable beer drinker and while we Americans had taken to the opportunity to drink legally, and on the school campus no less, I can't think of one of us who would have qualified for the task of tackling a Stiefel. At least not without paying the price.

Our time of departure from Eringerfeld was 10am that warm Tuesday morning. One hour was left to gather our suitcases, meet back at the courtyard and say our goodbyes. Despite our collective efforts to make time stand still, the final hour of our last day in Germany had arrived. With a heavy heart and what felt like brick shoes on my feet, I ascended the staircase toward my dormitory room to collect my things, take one last look around and say goodbye to the small, simply-furnished room that had become my home.

The Ticking of the Clock

My time as an American foreign exchange student in Germany had flown by and the end of August was quickly drawing near. During the last full week, nothing was mentioned, by any of us, about having to leave the following week to return to America. It was as if avoiding the topic of departure altogether might somehow prevent the day from ever arriving. Though Mario and I were painfully aware of the ticking of the clock and the fact that we had only three days left, we did our best to go through each day as if there were a million more days ahead of us.

It was Friday afternoon and we were scheduled to leave Germany the following Tuesday. The students at Eringerfeld had the opportunity to go home every other weekend and the coming weekend was one of those weekends. A friend of mine and Mario's had planned to throw a going away party for me that weekend at her parent's house.
Before my friend's parents arrived to pick us up, she and I went to a shop in nearby Geseke so I could look for a gift for Mario. I had no idea what I wanted to get him but I wanted it to remind him of me whenever he looked at it. I wanted it to be special. I wanted to tell him, without words, how much I loved him. After looking at several items and asking my friend's opinion, I finally narrowed the selection down to a silver bracelet on which I would have mine and Mario's names engraved. The bracelet was placed in a gift box which I planned to keep in my purse until just the right moment.

My German friend's father picked Mario, my friend and I up at Eringerfeld and we made our way toward the autobahn, which is part of Germany's federal motorway system. Even if you've never been on the autobahn before you've probably heard that there's really no speed limit and people drive quite fast. While there's an advisory speed limit of 130 kilometers per hour, which is equal to about 80 miles per hour, it is just that...an advisory speed limit; a mere suggestion. Drivers on the autobahn can and do drive much faster than the advisory speed limit and my friend's father was no exception to that rule.

From my spot in the back seat on the passenger's side, my eyes grew wide as I watched the speedometer creep up above 100 kph and continue to arch over toward the right. I felt as if I was a passenger in an Indy 500 race car. I looked out the window to distract myself from the steadily increasing speed but the scenery was going by so fast I could barely stand to look at it without feeling dizzy. The car continued to catapult down the highway at warp speed as I gripped the front edge of the seat. As I stared straight ahead I envisioned the ride to be similar to that of a ride in one of those space age cars seen in the cartoon "The Jetsons". I expected us to lift off at any moment and take to the skies, but it never happened. A few minutes later we were at my friend's house and I had lived to tell about my experience on the autobahn.

Details of the going away party that evening are vague, though there are a few things I remember for sure: the parents left for the night, the music was nonstop as was the drinking, and Mario and I hung back from the crowd, spending most of our time standing alone on a nearby stairway. The heat from Mario's body radiated onto my back as he stood one step behind me. The fingers of his left hand stroked my hair and, on occasion, I leaned my head back against his chest. Friends would stop over to talk to us for a minute or two then return to the main part of the room to dance and mingle with each other.

Not one word was uttered between Mario and I that entire night. A somberness surrounded and enveloped us as the realization of what was taking place finally set in. Mario and I hadn't allowed ourselves to think about it up until that point but when you're in the midst of a going away party it's hard to avoid the fact that someone is going away. Sadly, that someone was me.

Mario's magnetic smile and sparkling eyes had been replaced that evening by a seriousness I'd not seen in him before. I tried not to think about leaving on Tuesday but it was nearly impossible. As much as we wanted to enjoy and cherish our last few days together, a dark and dismal pallor had been cast over any potential enjoyment. As quickly as we'd fallen in love, our ability to nurture that love was about to be taken away.

In the wee hours of the night, Mario went home and I went to sleep at my friend's house. I don't recall the drive back to Eringerfeld the way I remember the details of the drive to my friend's home. In fact, the remainder of the weekend is a blur of hanging out with friends and soaking up as much time together as we possibly could.

Before the weekend drew to a close, I decided to give Mario his bracelet. In a quiet moment alone, late Sunday afternoon, I placed the box in his hand and anxiously watched him open it. He lifted the bracelet out of the box, read the inscription and smiled at me. "Thank you", he whispered, then he kissed me. I helped him put the bracelet around his left wrist, then slid my hand beneath his and watched as our fingers folded together.

For an eternity, I stared at his wrist, memorizing the way the silver chain lay against his skin just above the strong hand that had so tenderly held mine everyday for the past month. I closed my eyes, focusing on the feel of his skin against mine. How is it that thirty years later you can still remember the way it felt when someone held your hand? Though I cannot answer that question with words, I can tell you that when I sit quietly and close my eyes, I can feel Mario's hand slide over mine and I feel our fingers slide into place just as perfectly as the last two pieces of a puzzle.

The Things You Remember

It's funny, the things you remember when you look back in time. Some of the biggest events in our lives end up being so inconsequential they remain barely a blip on the radar. When someone says "Remember when....?", you have to think for a moment, "Was I really there?"

Yet the sights, sounds, smells and feelings of other events stay burned in our memories as if they occurred just yesterday.

I don't remember everything that happened during August 1980, but I remember a lot. There weren't any earth-shattering events or major happenings, such as holidays, birthdays or surprises, that would cause that time period to be memorialized in the recesses of my mind. It was the little things, the things that go unnoticed by others, that loomed large in my memory for years to come.

 I remember the feeling of the cobblestone beneath my feet when Mario and I walked across the courtyard at Eringerfeld. I remember the softness and smell of his shirt next to my face when he held me close. How do you describe what a person's smell was like? It smelled like him. I remember noticing extraordinarily emerald green grass on the soccer field as Mario and I walked past it, toward the hill, and having to wear a sweater in August because the air was cooler then back home in the United States.

I remember sitting at one of the long, dark wooden tables in the dining hall, surrounded by the smells of fresh breads and meat. I can still hear the sounds of everyone speaking at once, mostly in German, once in awhile in English, mingled with the sounds of silverware clanking against plates and the periodic silence that punctuated the noise when everyone chewed simultaneously.

Even though Mario and I were limited in what we could say to one another, I remember an abundance of smiles and laughter, losing ourselves in each other's eyes, feeling the electricity of his presence from across the room and the unspoken communication between us that far exceeded the kind of communication most couples ever know.

Mario & Mary, August 1980

From the moment we acknowledged our feelings for one another until that miserable day of departure, we fell in step with one another as if we had always been together and would never have to consider a day apart.

Have you ever been with someone with whom you felt like you were home? Not because of a specific place, a certain house or a state or country. Because the surroundings become irrelevant when you look into someone's eyes, breathe a sigh of contentment and relief and think to yourself, "I'm finally home".

It wasn't on the campus of an international boarding school in Germany that I found my home. It wasn't on a cobblestone path, in the middle of a courtyard adjacent to an old castle. Nor was it on a goose poop-covered hill. I found my home in the eyes, smile and love of a German boy during the warm summer month of August of 1980.

Kisses and Goose Poop

Following the afternoon Mario and I acknowledged our interest in one another, we were inseparable. Before classes, between classes, after classes, at night...whenever we could be together, we were. For those who feel language is too huge a barrier to overcome, I can assure you it is not. During our month together we didn't speak more then a handful of sentences directly to each other, without a translator, but there was never any doubt how we felt.

Like any other normal, teenage couple we went out for a coke or ice cream afterschool, held hands whenever we were together and kissed as much as was humanly possible. The wonderful thing about kissing is that you need no language to understand the feelings behind a kiss. No German words or English words were required for us to understand the sweetness, tenderness, passion and love that was growing between us. When Mario reached for my hand and our fingers melted together, neither of us needed to explain what was going on. During the summer of 1980, on a busy, international school campus, 5000 miles away from my home, Mario and I were falling in love.

When you live in a dormitory and attend a boarding school, where lots of other teens and adults are constantly present, it's next to impossible to find time alone. Wherever we went, we were surrounded by friends and the watchful eyes of the adults. Finding moments to be alone, just the two of us, were few and far between.

One afternoon, Mario grabbed my hand and we started walking away from the campus. We passed the goldenrod-colored arch that led into the courtyard and the portion of the building that had once been a castle.

The sidewalk in front of the old castle ended and turned into a gravel path as we headed down a small hill. The further we walked down the hill, the more distant the voices from the school became. I looked around us, then I looked up, into Mario's eyes and a smile spread across both our faces...we were alone. We found a grassy spot on the hill and sat down next to each other.

Like any other teenage girl wildly in love with a cute teenage boy, I wanted to look nice when I was with Mario. I wanted Mario to think I was pretty. I wanted him to notice my wavy hair, my face with my big, brown expressive eyes, the way I was dressed and when he noticed these things about me, I wanted him to fall that much further in love with me.

That afternoon, I had chosen to wear jeans and a brand new white shirt. Though it was August, I know the temperatures were cooler because the white shirt I wore had long sleeves. Shopping for clothes wasn't something I got to do very often, when I was at home. There wasn't a lot of money for clothes, except the money I earned babysitting, so having new clothing was something special and I knew I looked nice with the white shirt and jeans.

Mario and I began to kiss and I laid back into the grass, my head resting on his left arm. No words were spoken but a million thoughts flew through my head because I had an idea that Mario had more then kissing on his mind. I vacillated between enjoying his kisses and worrying about whether or not I was ready for what might be coming next. One moment blended into the next, when suddenly Mario stopped kissing me and sat up. I had been so focused on the kiss that I didn't know if there had been a noise, if someone had walked by or what was going on. But the moment was gone and, unfortunately, so was the mood. Mario grabbed my hand and gently pulled me up to my feet, then we walked back toward the campus. Several minutes later we arrived back at the dormitory. Mario let go of my hand, kissed me sweetly and we said goodbye.

I had been in my dorm room for awhile when one of my roommates walked in. I was busy doing something and my back was turned so I gave a half-hearted wave and muttered "Hello".

"What is that?!", my roommate practically shouted. I can't imagine she would have sounded any different if she'd seen a yellow elephant with purple and pink polka dots go flying past our window.

"What is what?", I replied, startled, as I whipped around to face her.

"What's all over your back?", she retorted. I walked over to the mirror and she came over to me to point out what she was seeing, as if I could have possibly missed it. All over the backside of my nice, new white shirt and the butt-portion of my jeans were long, oval-shaped brown and green spots.

"Oh, my god!!", I cried out as my hands flew to my face. "What is it?"

My roommate moved in for a closer look, then jumped back. "Ewwwwww!"

Now I was mortified, grossed out, and on the verge of a teenage version of a heart attack. Not only was my backside covered in nasty brown and green spots, but the spots had an ever-increasing, rancid, stinky odor. Though there hadn't been a goose in sight, it was clear that when I laid down on that soft, grassy hill for some coveted alone-time with Mario, I had also been laying on a bed of goose poop. The evidence was plastered all over my back.

As I attempted to regain composure, a horrifying thought entered my mind. What if that had been the reason Mario jerked up and stopped kissing me? What if he had felt or seen the goose poop? Or worse yet, what if he didn't see the goose poop and thought it was me that smelled so horrible? My life flashed before my eyes and my eyes darted about the room, searching for a sinkhole, somewhere, so I could crawl into it and hide for the rest of my life. I was so embarrassed I didn't know how I could ever show my face again...to Mario, to my roommate, or any other person within a 5000 mile radius of my presence. Worse yet, I knew Mario would never want to be seen with me again.

Though my roommate tried to reassure me, I slunk to the bathroom, humiliated and depressed. I threw away my jeans and my brand new white shirt, got in the shower and washed myself off.

Later that evening, when I left the dormitory with my German and American friends to head over to the dining hall for dinner, Mario was standing outside waiting for me. As soon as I spotted him, a smile spread across his face. I approached him slowly, waiting for him to burst out in laughter over the goose poop incident so I could scurry back to the dormitory and hide under the bed for the rest of my life. But that didn't happen. He reached for my hand and we walked together, with our friends, to the dining hall. If he'd seen, smelled or knew about the goose poop all over me, he never said a thing. I wondered and obsessed about the incident many times over, but Mario never gave me any indication that he was aware of what had happened or, if he was, that it made any difference to him. Looking back, I like to think he was too wrapped up in our kisses to notice a little goose poop....or even a lot of goose poop, plastered all over my back. 

Smile If You Like Me

My German wasn't very good. In fact, it was fairly nonexistent. Aside from being able to ask for a beer, a coke or some chocolate, I was inept at communicating in the language spoken by the vast majority of people at Eringerfeld.

Unlike most of the other American students on the trip, I was not in German class back in the United States. I had signed up for a class called Foreign Language Sample Course. In the class, over the course of sixteen weeks, I experienced four different languages: Spanish, French, German and Latin. The purpose of the class was to learn a little of the language and the culture and decide, from there, if you wanted to learn more. Of the four languages, I liked Latin the most. While taking the German portion of the course I learned about the upcoming opportunity to be a foreign exchange student in Germany during the month of August.

Despite the fact that I didn't speak German, I never felt concerned about my ability to communicate. I had American friends that could translate and many of the German students knew some English.  I attempted to say things the best that I could and, more than likely, completely butchered the language. In fact, I'm sure I butchered the language because on more then one occasion, my words were met with confused looks and furrowed brows.  Little did I know, at the time, that I would later wish I had made more of an effort to learn to speak German.

Monday morning arrived and, after breakfast, I walked over to the school with some friends. Sylvia was another American student on the trip who had grown up in a bilingual home and was fluent in German. Sylvia was the go-to girl if anyone, American or German, needed translations. Mid-morning, Sylvia came up to me to let me know I had an admirer, Mario, the DJ from the school disco. No question about it, I liked Mario. When he smiled the room lit up. When he glanced at me at the disco I felt as if I was the only one there. I'd seen him in class and had really noticed him at the disco but left it at that. I barely spoke any German and had no idea if he spoke any English. It was difficult enough to communicate with American boys. What would I do if I didn't even know enough German to tell Mario I liked him?  In the end, it wouldn't matter. I expected nothing to come of it.

Mario had a message for me and had asked Sylvia to deliver it for him. The message was simple; he had asked that I smile back at him, in class, if I liked him. A lump formed in my throat and butterflies flew around in my stomach. "Okay" was all I could utter in reply.

I entered English class and headed over to my seat in the third row at the last desk. Mario sat to my right, in the first row, the third seat. I sat in my seat, put my book on the desk and stared straight ahead....too scared and too nervous to do anything else. I cannot remember what we discussed in class that day or if I even participated. The only thing I heard was the sound of my heart beating loudly in my own ears. Each second on the clock ticked by ever so slowly as if time was screeching to an agonizing halt. I could see Mario out of the corner of my eye but didn't dare to look in his direction. I didn't want to be too obvious and what if he changed his mind and didn't smile at me first? I would look like a total idiot. My palms were sweaty and everything began to move in slow motion, the way it does in the movies. English class was half over....what was going on? Maybe he'd decided he didn't like me after all. Maybe Sylvia didn't really understand German and had delivered the wrong message. Maybe Mario liked someone else and Sylvia had made a mistake.

Eight million frantic and crazy thoughts swirled around in my head when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mario turn to look in my direction. Very slowly, I turned my head to the right just enough to see if he was smiling at me. As I did, a smile spread across his face. The eight million frantic and crazy thoughts that had occupied my mind a few seconds earlier suddenly disappeared. Sylvia hadn't gotten the message wrong, after all. She truly did understand German and I wasn't an idiot. Mario's eyes lit up and I turned to meet his gaze. And then I smiled back because I did, indeed, like him very much.

The Disco

Friday night was the first night for me to stay in the dormitory on campus with all the other American students, along with our new German friends. To celebrate the end of our first week at Eringerfeld, we all made plans to go to the disco for dancing and fun.

Like most any other sixteen year old girl, I obsessed over what to wear, how to do my hair and whether or not I looked okay. I had always had my own sense of fashion and didn't really care if what I wore was the latest style. I preferred to have my own style. But the German girls knew how to dress. They weren't afraid to dress punk if that's what they wanted. They weren't afraid to wear bright colors if that's what they wanted. They weren't afraid to wear clothes that made them stand out from the crowd. I loved the diversity and the variety and wished it was like that in America. As a teen in America, if you didn't look like a clone of everyone else, then you weren't accepted. I knew that and had experienced it a million times over. I loved that the girls in Germany wore whatever they damn well pleased and life went on. Even though, in retrospect, I wasn't all that different with my feathered hair, my bright-colored baggie pants and tank tops, I felt more accepted in Germany, by the German teens, then I ever had in my homeland.

By the time we finished dinner in the dining hall, got dressed and did our hair, and finally headed over to the disco it was dark. The night sky was pitch black and it was impossible to see as we walked the sidewalk from the dormitory to the disco. Not knowing where I was going, I followed the sounds of the music as they grew louder and hoped I was still walking with the right crowd.

As the doors to the disco burst open, the flashing disco lights pierced the darkness and beckoned us in. There were tables and chairs scattered around the room and a dance floor in the middle. Raised above the dance floor, to my left, the DJ played music and got the crowd going. He was a cute German boy I'd seen in English class...the only class that made any sense to me.

The music played on and we danced and laughed until our feet were tired and our heads were sore. Though it was dark in the disco and hard to see, I gazed around my surroundings as much as I could, not wanting to ever forget the experience, that night or the moment. We waved goodbye to the DJ and the others at the disco and got ready to head back out into the night. For a split-second, before we left, everything slowed down similar to the way it does in the movies. Back at home I'd never felt accepted...not at home and certainly not at school. I never felt there was a place for me. As my friends and I walked out of the disco that night, into the warm August air, I realized I felt at  home. Some 5000 miles away from the place where I lived, I finally felt at home.

First Beer, First Coffee, First....Strange Egg

My first four days in Germany were spent living with a host family in an old English Tudor-style farm house about a block away from the school. The house was large, with dark, ornately-carved wood throughout and a stairway that seemed to go on forever. The teenage daughter was the only one who spoke any English, which was good since, after a three-week crash course in the German language, my German was limited to asking for a beer, some chocolate or french fries. As a sixteen year old girl, what more did I really need to know how to say?

In the morning, the breakfast table was full of breads, jams, some sort of chocolate and nut flavored spread they put on their toast, and steaming hot coffee. I had never had coffee at home; it always smelled so horrible. Curious and wanting to take in all the cultural experiences I could, I poured some cream into my cup and followed it with a rich-looking, dark coffee. Thirty years later, I cannot say that I remember how the coffee tasted, but I know I liked it. The flavor was strong and bold, that much I know, because in order to duplicate the taste when I came back home I had to drink my coffee black.

On the first day of school, the other American students and I were delighted to learn there was a disco and two pubs right there on campus. Not for faculty or adults only, but for the students. I was amazed. Like the coffee, the beer was strong in flavor. After the first one, I decided I had best stick to the light beer if I was going to have a clue about what was going on around me. My friend and I had a beer and french fries to top off our first day together at school, then walked home. I couldn't help but smile to myself at the irony. My parents were worried about me going out at home and what might happen when I did. Yet, here I was in Germany, walking home from school after legally drinking my first beer in the pub located right there on the school campus.

On the day of our first field trip, I woke up sick. My stomach hurt and I had a fever. My very sweet host mother brought me breakfast on a tray. I know the tray was full, but I only remember one thing on it: an egg sitting in some sort of strange cup. The egg and the cup were accompanied by a small spoon. I assumed the egg was hard-boiled because that was the only kind of egg with the shell still on that I'd ever been served before. I had no clue what was up with the egg cup and spoon but figured there was a purpose for each.

I smiled and thanked my host mother for the food. As soon as she left the room, I stared at the egg as if waiting for it to tell me what to do. Ultimately, I decided the Germans must eat their hard-boiled eggs this way, in a fancy cup, using a spoon. So I tapped at the top of the egg, prepared to start scooping out and eating the cooked egg. Much to my dismay, and the dismay of my upset stomach, the egg was barely cooked at all. It jiggled around in the shell as I tilted the egg cup from one side to another. When I stopped moving the egg cup, the egg appeared to still move. With a cringe and a shudder, I quietly got out of bed, egg in hand, and scampered down to the bathroom where I proceeded to plop the egg into the toilet, flush it down, then scamper back to bed with the empty eggshell in my hand. To this day, I cannot eat eggs that have any jiggle to them or seem to move of their own free will.  Learn more about Egg Cups.

Two days later, I moved onto the school campus, into the dormitory with the other American students. My host family couldn't have been more gracious or wonderful and I still have so many fond memories of them, including the strange, jiggley egg. But campus life awaited and I could hardly wait to begin my experience as an independent American teen in Germany, going to a boarding school with two pubs and a disco on campus.

The dormitory at Internat Schloss Eringerfeld

The Beginning of it All

Thirty years ago, in August 1980, I landed in Germany along with eighteen other travel-weary American high school students, our German language teacher, and one chaperone. We had arrived in Germany for a month-long stay as foreign exchange students at the Internat Schloss Eringerfeld, a boarding school near Geseke.


Our stay began with a night in Frankfurt. Despite the twelve-hour flight and the seven-hour time change, we were ready to party in our German hotel. Hanging out of our unscreened hotel windows, we snapped pictures of each other dangling over the busy streets below us. Our excitement was a mixture of being in a foreign country and being away from our parents for the first time. Feelings of freedom, emancipation from the rules and regulations of everyday life, excitement, anticipation and nervousness all swirled together to create a massive emotional wave. As one of the youngest on the trip, at the age of sixteen, I could hardly believe I was there. My parents barely allowed me to go out with my friends at night, let alone 5000 miles away for an entire month. Little did I know what an impact the month in Germany would have on me. Nor could I have ever imagined how it would impact me, even more, some thirty years later.

The next morning, we boarded a rickety old school bus for the seven hour drive from Frankfurt to the Internat Schloss Eringerfeld. The stagnant heat in the bus helped to quiet our excitement. As the hustle and bustle of Frankfurt gave way to rolling hills and lush and lively farms, I fell in love with the land of Germany. The hours gave way to a mixture of group singing, talking and laughter, and lulls of silence. During one of our quiet periods, our German language teacher stood at the front of the bus and announced that we were fifteen minutes away from the school. Cheers of excitement erupted in unison as we bounced in our seats, clapped our hands and hugged each other. I had never seen more excitement on Christmas morning then I witnessed on that overheated, rickety old bus that hot August day in Germany.

We laughed and cheered and spoke over one another until the bus turned a corner and began to slow down. Amidst the crunch of the gravel beneath the bus's wheels and the squeaking of our vinyl seats, you could have heard a pin drop as the bus slowed to a halt. Wide-eyed, excited and nervous, we slowly arose to form a line in the aisle of the bus. I took my place in line, the fifth person from the end, and stooped down to look out the window as we moved, slowly, to exit the school bus.

"Thank you", we all murmured to the bus driver, and then it was my turn to step down to the cobblestone path that would lead me toward the school that would be my home for the next month and the experience that would ultimately change my life.