When I arrived in Frankfurt the holidays whirled by, Christmas in Oberhausen with The German’s parents, his brother and his brother’s wife. We dined on fondue bourguignonne, which is basically meat fondue. The fondue pot is filled with oil and heated and you cook cubes of steak or pork to dip in various sauces (my favorite is curry) served on the side. It is so simple and delicious. I also love eating raclette, cooking my lil piece of bread with cheese, y-u-m. After dinner, bottles of different flavored grappa were brought down for our digestive and sampled. Yowzers, grappa. That stuff could start a car. But I liked it. NYE was celebrated in Köln with The German’s army buddy Oliver and his girlfriend Melanie (by the end of the night it was Melaner and Oliven) and their gang. We watched fireworks standing beside the Rhein. I remember it being so freezing cold I froze my cute lil behind off in my tights and miniskirt (but wearing a huge polar bear like furry coat, naturally faux fur, I love that coat).
Then the blur subsided and reality gave me a quick, swift kick to the head. I had just quit my job, moved out of my NYC studio, left my family and friends and was now living in Germany. I had minored in French for God’s sake.
My first instinct when moving to any new town is get to know your neighborhood. I love to explore. Our house sat perfectly on top of a hill at the end of a skinny street where there were strawberries and currants growing on the lot next to us. Looking out a large window my view scanned the top of the red roofs and up on a hill was a large soldier looking statue. I had to find out about my new hood. Where does that stream run to? How large is this beautiful forest surrounding me? What is that huge statue? And who is that crazy lady living down the street, she kinda freaks me out.
Herman the Gothic, Herman the German, Das Hermannsdenkmal, is a monument that stands 173 ft tall in the Teutoburg forests that surrounded my new town of Detmold Germany. It was a popular German tourist destination (a statue? whatev) but so was another place not too far away, the Externsteine. The Externsteine are a distinctive rock formation possibly founded as early as 815. It consists of several tall, narrow columns of rock which rise abruptly from the surrounding wooded hills and there is definitely a spooky vibe surrounding it as it was a center of religious activity and the tallest stone was used for sacrifices. The German would tease me that the crazy lady came to the Externsteine every night and did a ritual. And I believed him. I would say hello and smile every time I saw her so she wouldn’t put an evil hex upon me. She scared the bejesus out of me.
I now live in a sleepy little town on the southern tip of Mallorca where there seems to be a fantastic lack of tourists, not counting the popular fish restaurant C’an Pep. This Saturday I let the time slip away and my one small grocery store had already closed but I needed to grab a few food/wine staples from my next closest supermercado fifteen km away. Everything is shut down tight on Sundays so I have to stock up for the weekend and in the case of a random holiday which will close everything down. Europe seems crazy for their dia(s) de fiesta and I never know when they will strike and render me useless for a day or so. 
longer than six months they must register for Spanish plates. And me, always pushing the illegal envelope had done no such thing. Handing them my Oklahoma driver’s license and the expired insurance card I tried in broken Spanish to tell them it was by boyfriend’s car, mi coche de los novios! Por favor. After much discussion and a crowd starting to watch, they told me it was illegal to drive without a Spanish license but I know the laws and said I was only a tourista. Granted, I live here but I try to leave the EU every 90 days to renew my requirements. After that was said, all was good. They can’t do a single thing to a tourista and my Oklahoma license was good to go. Oh, but one more thing, the breathaylzer test. I fumbled with opening the small plastic packet containing my blow piece and blew for two seconds. No, no, no the nice cop said, you must breathe until I tell you to stop. Alright, let’s try this again. I hadn’t had my glass of red wine yet so I registered a 0.00 and I even got to keep my blow piece as a souvenir.
I am constantly asked the question : “How did an American girl from Oklahoma end up living on the island of Mallorca with a German boyfriend?”. Well, the answer is simple really. It was fate. Do you believe in fate? Because I do. I would never be here if I had not made plans to see my friend in Vegas when I was there for work. And I would never be here if my job had not taken me to Vegas. And I would not be here if I did not decide, what the hell, just go to the wedding. It might be fun.
GOING NINETY MILES 