Thanks. Refreshing to read that posted by a non-German FReeper. :)
We´ll make it. We simply have to!
A proud CDU-member and campaigning for Merkel these weeks
I had no connection with Germany and little knowledge until I went to Europe for the first time to be stationed with the U.S. Army in Germany. I loved it and immediately fell in love with the German people. I lived there for three years.
I can't count the wonderful memories. My wife and I attended the Beyreuth Festspiel every summer; learned about wine; studied the German language on the college level; traveled everywhere; made friends. I get homesick just thinking about it.
Sometimes on a foggy evening, at the Kaserne by the lamplight, in my olivedrab trenchcoat, I half expected Marlene Dietrich to ask me for a light--but I am too much a romantic.
I actually wept after I said goodbye to my German secretary for the last time. She and her husband had dinner with my wife and me that last night.
When we said Auf Wiedersehen, I hugged her for the first time, and when she and her husband left, I broke down in tears.
My wife said, "I didn't know she meant so much to you."
I replied, "Neither did I."
I have tears in my eyes right now, just thinking about it and what a wonderful, kind, loving, intelligent, and wise person she is.
My son was one year old when we went to Germany. He became bilingual; evidently he spoke German without an American accent.
We returned to America, and he lost his ability to speak German dispite my efforts to keep it alive.
When he became an adult, he fell in love with a wonderful girl from Germany, whom he met in America. Her mother had married an American stationed in Germany.
Just what the connection was or how the psychology played out, I don't know, but I adore my dauther-in-law!
They were married in America. Some of her relatives came from Germany for the wedding. I gave toasts in both languages.
After they were married, they went to Germany to visit her relatives who could not come to America. Her grandmother, zum Beispiel, couldn't make the trip.
They also visted the city in which we had lived. The same secretary and some other of our friends, took my son and his wife to dinner, took care of them, wouldn't let them pay for anything. Needless to say, tears came to my eyes again. I sent them Christmas presents, to make sure that they knew how deeply I appreciated all that they had done, but, of course, there's no way to repay such kindness and loveliness.
I now have a beautiful little granddaughter!
Quite a collection of souvenirs to bring back from my trip to Germany, nicht wahr?!??