Care packages

Tonight we got a care package full of awesomeness: Halloween and fall candy, fall-flavored tea, and fall decorations.

Since we had candy corn, and it was Date Night (a double special occasion) we decided to break out one of my precious hoard of Pillsbury cake mixes — white — and a stashed can of Pillsbury white frosting to make cupcakes. I sit on a sizable pile of these American baking ingredients like Smaug nestles into a mound of gold. And I guard them in a similar manner. But occasionally I can pry them from my own grip and actually use them — when it’s the right moment.

I believe the cake mix and frosting may be items that I put in a care package I actually sent to myself from the States this summer before we came back to Europe.

That reminded me of the stressful circumstances involved with sending a care package to myself.
First was the shopping for the care package. Having lived for three years without certain American goodies I have no access to in Europe, I went a little overboard in buying one or two of everything that I’ve missed. What I thought were a “few things” turned into four double-sacked Wal-Mart plastic bags that were quite heavy. As I walked out of the store, grunting in my struggle to carry the 20-pound bags to my car, my greed battled with my frugality = stress.

Second, was trying to fit everything into one box that wasn’t too heavy. Naturally, that wasn’t possible, so I left two grocery bags in my parents’ closet with the intention of sending money later to ship the leftover items to me in the fall or winter.

Third, I had a bit of a war with myself over two particular items: two cans of cooking spray.

Europeans don’t have or use cooking spray. I assume they slather everything they eat in slimy yellow cooking oil or larded up butter. Me, I prefer my calorie-free, light spritz of no-stick man-made chemical on my pots and pans. And so I really wanted to get a couple of cans back to my kitchen.

In the past, I threw a few cans in my checked luggage. Then I’d gotten to the airport and saw pictures of aerosol cans on the warning signs before you get to the check-in counter, proclaiming that anything pressurized is a suitcase-b--- waiting to happen and if you pack one of these house-wife-grenades in your luggage, you’re dooming yourself and all your fellow passengers to a fiery death when that explosive goes off in the baggage hold of the airplane over the ocean so that if the flames don’t burn you to death, the sharks will get you when you land.

Before I’d seen that sign, I didn’t know my harmless little calorie-free cooking spray was a sinister weapon. (It’s not like you could carry one with you while you’re out jogging and spray it on a would-be attacker and then run away.) And already having it in my possession, inside my suitcase, was like a point of no return.

As I marched past that warning sign at check-in, I rationalized to myself — surely women for decades have smuggled pressurized cans of hairspray or mousse into their suitcases and no harm has been done. I can’t have been the first to carry an aerosol can onto a plane. Besides, these are comparatively small. And I guess if it’s really that bad, security will find it when they screen the bags and take it out, right?

I checked that bag, keeping as innocent a look on my face as I could manage, while the checker handed back my passport and boarding passes and waved me on to my gate.

Then I got a sick feeling in my stomach. As I struggled through security, I remembered the time that I accidentally got through airport security with a full canister of pepper spray in my carry-on because I’d forgotten it was in there.

“What if the baggage checkers don’t find the cooking spray and it really does blow up and rip a hole in the baggage hold of our plane and we all die?” I was thinking to myself.

I have a tendency to imagine the worst that could possibly happen, and sometimes even worse than that. I tried to reason with myself that I was being ridiculous. A little can of oil surely couldn’t take down an airliner, otherwise terrorists would use cooking spray as weapons instead of C4, right?
I sat rigidly through the entire flight, worried and waiting for something awful to happen. When we finally landed, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and when I got home, was thrilled that my cooking spray was still in my suitcase.

However, I didn’t think I could go through that anxiety ever again, so I ruled out packing cans of pressurized cooking spray in my luggage anymore.

Thus, sending it to myself in a box. “This will be an anxiety-free experience,” I thought to myself.
I thought wrong.

After standing approximately three days in line at the US post office with my heavy box of cooking and eating items, including two precious cans of cooking spray, I finally got to the shipping desk.
That’s when I saw the giant poster on the wall next to the desk with shadowy silhouette drawings of items that are forbidden in shipping packages going international. The silhouettes included bottles of nail polish, firecrackers, gasoline, weapons and… aerosol cans.

NOOOOooooooooooooo!!!

The sign proceeded to explain that if any of these items were shipped and caused damage in the shipping process, the shipper would be liable for fines of thousands of dollars and up to 5 years in jail.

The postal worker was filling out paperwork to attach to my boxes while I looked quickly away from the poster. But I couldn’t unsee what I had seen. I knew. I was now informed. The man didn’t ask me whether my boxes contained aerosol cans, or anything else dangerous. I tried to shape my face into an expression that did not suggest I was sending weaponized cooking fat in my box.

The anxiety was tightening the pit of my stomach. Was going to prison worth two bottles of cooking spray? Hmmm. I had to think about this. And I was running out of time. The man was attaching the document to the box and now he was weighing it.

Then I remembered that another hazardous item on the poster was nail polish. Suddenly I relaxed. It was ridiculous to suggest that tiny bottles of nail polish would explode in shipping and down an entire airliner. Surely the same logic could apply to 10-inch bottles of oil. It should be fine.
I shipped the package. Then I walked away.

Then it hit me — what if the bottles didn’t explode, but some postal employee had to open the box for some reason and found the bottles? What then? Would they track me down and prosecute me for endangering their lives?

I felt generally uneasy for the next few weeks until we arrived in Europe and found our boxes had preceded us. I ripped open the cardboard and tape and exhaled heavily when I saw my bottles were inside and were intact.

Then I found a piece of paper in the box that I had not put in there. It was yellow and had block print letters on it that said the following: “Please remove moss.”

When I had been packing the box, I had grabbed some plastic from my parents’ closet to fill in some open spaces in the box, and a little bit of dried flower arrangements had gotten knocked off a wreath my mom had stored in the closet. The bits of dusty, crisp flower petals and leaves had fallen into the box.

Apparently the inspectors looking inside my box felt that these bits of dried leaves were much more dangerous than the pressurized cooking spray I had packed along with them.

Dangerous "moss" aside, with all the anxiety involved with getting cooking spray to Europe, I don’t believe I will try this again in the future.

You know you live in Switzerland when...

You know you live in Switzerland when:

• You think a $4 cup of coffee is cheap.
• You can’t afford to go out for Chinese.
• When you go out, you constantly worry about inadvertently breaking a rule.
• You successfully conduct business mostly based on other people’s body language and facial expressions.
• Your favorite cheese is now a soft French white or Emmenthaler.
• You can eat a whole pizza by yourself.
• You can’t buy your niece any cute clothes because a baby outfit costs $149 USD.
• You only drink sparkling water.
• Shopping for groceries requires a passport.
• You can’t afford to buy books in your own language.
• Someone else has to make your doctor’s appointments for you.
• You walk places instead of drive.
• You make taco seasoning from scratch.
• You squeal out loud and clap your hands in the middle of the store when you find cheddar.
• A Whopper Jr. is a special occasion treat.
• You won’t eat ice cream unless it’s called gelato.
• You have to visit five different stores to get all your groceries.
• A day trip might mean driving to the other side of the nation.
• You have to special order common baking ingredients from family.
• You hoard everyday food items like Mac and Cheese, brown sugar and Campbells soup.
• You have no storage space.
• You don’t know anyone who lives in a house.
• You watch all your TV shows and movies on a 13-inch computer screen.
• You operate in three different currencies daily.
• You think in Celsius degrees instead of Fahrenheit.

Another milestone: Too many friends

As I stared at the two-page spread for the week in my daytimer, looking for an empty space in which to wedge yet another social engagement, I suddenly felt grateful. This time two years ago, I was incredibly lonely and hungry to find just one good friend I could spend time with.

My husband was neck-deep in teaching and mentoring students at the international school where we live and work. He spent all day talking to kids in the library office; laughing and joking with students and faculty during the 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. coffee breaks and noon lunches in the dining hall; carving out quiet time for developing his courses, and participating in evening book discussions or Friday night social activities.

Did I mention my husband is an off-the-scale introvert?

I, on the other hand, worked in a separate office down the street. I tried to ignore the creaking and groaning of the otherwise empty, three-story building while pumping out articles and newsletters for our magazine throughout the month. I could wear pretty much anything I wanted to the office -- even pajama pants or slightly low-cut tank tops, if I were so inclined -- because basically no one was going to see me all day. I played loud music or streamed argumentative news analysis programs to fill up the silence.

And of course, I am an extrovert.

Coming home in the evening was interesting. While I was ready, and even desperate, to talk and engage about the day, my husband was emotionally and physically exhausted. He would sequester himself over his computer or a book in our bedroom, relishing the silence, while I huddled on the living room couch listening to more music or news shows through headphones or went into the campus exercise room to workout alone while watching an online TV show.

This upside down routine lasted well over the first year after we relocated to Switzerland. There were social activities from time to time that I could participate in, but these mostly involved students who didn't quite know what to do with me since the rest of the time I wasn't around, and I was about 15 years older than they were.

Once, in a conversation about television, I tried to talk a student about a favorite show of mine, which she hadn't heard of.

"When was that on?" she asked.

"About 1992, I think."

"Well, I was only 1," she replied, looking a bit exasperated.

I went for bike rides alone, shopping alone, worked for the most part alone, and spent my evenings -- for all intents and purposes -- alone. My husband and I had date nights and coffee mornings. But my husband is not a woman, and I really missed female companionship with women my age, or couples who shared our same point in life -- young, adventuresome and childless.

It's been two years and now I have a different dilemma: I have too many friends. We have befriended three Swiss and German couples who have married children; we have befriended a young Swiss couple who, like us, don't have children, and share many of our interests. And I frequently share walks and bike rides with a woman who lives up the street and is eager for periodic adult time away from her two toddlers.

New staff have come to our workplaces, increasing our adult social activities. And the students are now dispersed across Europe instead of concentrated on campus, as the international school transitioned to an extension center model. As a result, my introvert husband spends less time talking during the day, which allows him more energy to give to me and our time together throughout the week.

I'm currently struggling to fit into my calendar a coffee date with a German girlfriend, a retired couple who have invited us to their flat for a barbecue, and a couple from the English class I teach who want to have us over for dinner. There are also weekend hiking and biking trips I've planned with workplace friends while our summer lingers.

I stare at my scribbled up calendar, think back over the past two years in this new culture, and am grateful for my new problem of having too many friends.

Cross-cultural dreams

In the past year, several people have told me that if you pay attention to the feelings in your dreams, it sometimes gives you a clue to what you're feeling and experiencing when you're awake, because your subconscious tries to continue processing and problem-solving when you're sleeping.

It's a pretty easy guess, then, what last night's dream was about.

I dreamed that I had ordered a custom-built house, and when it was done, my husband and I packed up all our stuff and drove over to the house to move in. Several local friends, some of whom are German, showed up to help us unload everything into the new house.

As we walked up to the house, I realized that the kitchen wasn’t finished — it had only three walls, and the fourth wall was open to the outside; also there was no roof. So it was like an outdoor kitchen.

“They didn’t finish the kitchen!” I said, upset.

“Yes, they did. This is the European style of kitchen,” said my German friend. “All the kitchens in Europe are this way.”

“But what about when it’s winter, and it’s cold and rainy?” I asked.

“Oh, we just plug in extra heaters and use umbrellas, it’s totally fine,” he said.

Swiss efficiency

Stereotypes can be very misleading. For instance, the stereotype of Switzerland is that everything here is very efficient and streamlined. 

Trying to make sense of their national train website would totally put the lie to that.

If you've ever wondered why someone would go on a murderous rampage without any apparent provocation, consider that the trigger may have been trying to use the Switzerland train system website.

Here is a recent experience I had, after giving up on the website and just going down to the train station ticket counter.

Ticket salesman: How can I help you? 

Me: We want to buy the special 36-franc tickets to Venice. 

Salesman: Oh, the one on the website? You can only buy that on the website. 

Me: But on the website it says you can buy it at the counter. 

Salesman: Sorry, but only on the website. 

Me: But on the website the cheap ticket does not come up. 

Salesman: What day did you want to travel? 

Me: Whatever day has the cheap ticket. 

Salesman: Oh, it does not work that way. You have to put in which dates you want to travel and then see if the cheap ticket comes up. 

Me: You mean you can't just click on the cheap ticket and see which days it is offered? 

Salesman: No. You must type in your dates of travel first. 

Me: So, I would have to actually go into every single day from now through the next four months to see if the cheap ticket is hidden in one of those days? 

Salesman: Well, yes. I guess you have some work to do.

Re-entry shock

For people who live in another country or culture for a while and then return home, there's a thing called "re-entry shock."

If you've been gone long enough that you've in any way adapted to another culture and/or language, then you've begun to think different or operate differently. Thus, returning home is actually going through culture shock all over again, but it's more unsettling because it's your home where you're supposed to feel most comfortable.

When we took classes to prepare us for living overseas, we of course studied culture shock and re-entry shock. However, everyone experiences different discomforts, so the class was mostly about generalities. So, even though you think you're prepared for the discomforts, you're still "shocked" about the specific things that bother you.

You can't prepare for surprise.

Last year, we went home for Christmas for several weeks. We had only been gone about a year, so we didn't think returning to the United States would involve any discomforts. All we could think about was what we had missed over the past year: chiles rellenos, live TV, English radio stations, buffalo wings, Starbucks coffee that doesn't cost $10, moms' homecooking, our cat and, oh yeah, our families.

What could there be that would shock us?

Our insurance coverage for living overseas doesn't include dental. So we hadn't had a cleaning in over a year. Being that we work for a nonprofit, we also don't have much extra spending money for things like cleanings, since we spent most of it on our plane tickets to go home. When we heard on the radio that a local dental care center would offer free services to anyone in the community between 8 a.m. and noon one day, it seemed like a great idea to take advantage of this.

We got up at 6 a.m., groggily threw on some clothes, ate a couple of granola bars and drove in the pre-dawn light across town to the clinic, thinking we could beat the crowd. As my husband eased our borrowed car into the parking lot, we were dismayed to see a line of people wrapped around three sides of the building.

I am not a morning person. Neither is my husband. We stood in frozen silence, trying not to let our teeth chatter too loudly, leaning close to one another for warmth as we joined the back of the line.

Apparently, everyone else in line were morning people.

All around us, people were talking up a storm, and doing it loudly. From every side, it seemed, we were bombarded with inane conversation. Each person seemed to feel it necessary to vocalize the stream-of-consciousness thoughts in their heads. Some turned to face behind them in the line, hoping to engage the next person in conversation about the cold, the line, whether the nearest gas station had good coffee, the cold and the line.

As more people streamed through the parking lot to join the lengthening queue, they had to ask the same questions that the people in front of them had asked when THEY joined the line: How long had we been here? When would they open the doors to the clinic? Do you think everyone will be served or is there a cutoff? I heard they only take the first 100 people. How many people do you think are in line already?

I was ready to slap someone. It felt like my brain was going to explode. I couldn't shut out the voices and what they were saying. No matter how hard I tried to drift off into my own thoughts, the bombardment of conversation seemed to batter my head.

Suddenly, I realized something. For a year, I'd been surrounded by people in every public place who were speaking German and Swiss-German. Sometimes they spoke French; occasionally it was Italian. Even the random Arabic or Ukrainian. And there had been something blissfully peaceful about not being able to understand any of these languages. It meant that on a train, a subway car, a sidewalk, a grocery line, at a restaurant table, or strolling around a tourism site, the voices around me had been nothing more than a background buzz, leaving me plenty of space for my own meandering thoughts.

For a year, I'd experienced the peace and quiet of my own inner world because I couldn't understand the conversations around me. And now, I no longer had the ability to tune out other conversations.  It was like I was Supergirl; I had super-hearing and could hear every one of the 500,000 people in the city. My brain seemed to latch onto every English word spoken within a 10-mile radius.

My husband was having the same experience. No matter how enticing was the thought of free dental care, after only 30 minutes we looked at one another and non-verbally agreed it was time to get the heck out of here. We couldn't take it. One more year with dirty teeth was worth it to get away from all the voices butting up against our heads.

This is re-entry shock. You don't know what it'll be. You can't prepare yourself. It'll shock you.

Christmas markets

One thing I look forward to every year in Germany and Switzerland are the Christmas markets.

Christmas seems fairly understated here compared to in America -- and I like that. Our family doesn't have TV or radios here, and we don't get a newspaper or even go shopping very much. So commercials and advertising aren't crammed down our throats throughout the holidays in Europe, which is a very nice change of pace.

I suppose the Christmas markets that take place in almost every village, town and city in Germany, Switzerland and Austria would be this culture's version of commercializing the Advent season. It just seems more tasteful here, somehow.

Last year was my first Christmas in Europe, and due to inclement weather, I only got to visit the market in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This year, I'm hitting four markets. I've been to Heidelberg and Frankfurt so far. Basel is this weekend.

Here are a few photos of the experiences:

These are called "schneeballen," or snow balls. They're pie dough deep fried and covered in all kinds of toppings. Here's how they're made: http://rileyquinnauthor.blogspot.com/2010/10/rothenburg-schneeballen.html.