Andy, bleibst du bei uns für immer?

As of today I have one more month in Hamburg. Thirty-one more days in this fantastic, incredible city. It's a bit surreal to think about. In fact, ever since about March or April things have started to shift gears in my head--take on a funny sort of hue in my thoughts. I got back after being away for three weeks at the end of March, and all of a sudden the city looked different. I left it in snow and ice and cold, and came back to shining sun and sunglasses and blossoming trees. I had grown to really know Hamburg in the winter, and it was a strange experience coming back to it in the spring.

Somehow it seemed different, like it wasn't quite the city I had left. I'd almost get lost walking around the streets since I didn't recognize everything in the new weather. Nor did it have the sense of permanence for me that it formerly did. I already had the sense that I was only going to be here for a short period of time, that I was going to leave in just a matter of months. Ever since the feeling has deepened--I'm still getting to know the city better, still discovering it, but it almost has a sense of nostalgia to it even though I haven't left yet.

It's all had a funny effect on my emotions to say the least. On one hand I can easily imagine myself staying here for a really long time. The kids at least seem to think I'm going to be around for a while; on several occasions in the past few weeks they've asked me, "Andy, bleibst du bei uns für immer?" (Andy, are you going to stay with us forever?). They always look really surprised when I tell them that my time is up in Germany at the end of June. "Aber warum?" they always ask. Which is a good question actually: why?

I guess the basic, adult answer would be that my work visa runs out at the end of June. I've got my plane tickets booked already. I haven't seen the majority of my family or friends in a year. America seems to be the place to be at the moment. The simplicity of that question, "Why?", really gets me every time though. I've come to really love this place, hearing and speaking German all the time, enjoying the little quirks and small things about life in Germany that you just can't find anywhere else. The fact a two minute train delay sparks outrage in me nowadays, that I get agitated crossing the street when the crossing signal is red, more so when there are other people around.

Maybe the kids are right. It seems a waste to have spent all this time over here and just say goodbye to the place. It's a somber thought thinking about going back to America, hearing nothing but English, driving everywhere, forgetting German. Especially forgetting German. It was an absolute shock getting here in September and discovering how sloppy and rough my German had become. Nowadays I can understand 99% of what I hear, and communicate my thoughts and feelings almost perfectly (if not grammatically perfectly). Losing the language is almost a worse thought than leaving the country. For the moment anyway I'll be returning back to the USA (at least some of those kids are going to grow up to work in the Bezirksamt when they grow older, and then they'll understand), but we'll see if I can cope with renaturalizing myself into my own country again. It's going to be quite the adjustment after all this.