My Ma came to Town

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So I had lived in Germany for about 4 months and I hadn’t had any visitors. My entire family all along had planned on coming and visiting me in March during my sister spring break but I told them if anyone wanted to visit earlier I would be much more flexible during the University phase. So my mother planned a trip to come in November. She was only able to stay about a week but I planned of making it a Germany filled week. She came on a Wednesday night to the Köln/Bonn airport. I thought it would be nice and easy to pick her up but when it comes to public transportation nothing is ever easy. The train that was supposed to take me into the airport stopped the train station before and told everyone it wasn’t going to the airport and to get off. I asked why and all the train conductor did was shrug his shoulders. I had been talking to a woman from New Zealand about my program and she was freaking out since she had a flight soon and didn’t speak any German. I told her we could just take a taxi and that I could speak to them just fine. I got there only about 5 minutes late.
The first day I showed my mom where I go to school in Wuppertal and around the city shopping center. It was so interesting the little things she noticed that I have started to see as normal life. She was amazed by all the little bakeries on every corner and how it seems like every German is walking around eating bread. I showed her how I get around with public transportation and she soon learned my life is a lot of waiting for trains or buses. The next day we went into Dusseldorf and I showed her all the sights and shopping district. She was impressed by all the architecture and buildings. That evening she got a full dose of the German language. My host father had a birthday party and we had dinner with them. It has surprised me how hard it is for me to switch between German and English. Many times I would be speaking with someone in German and then I would ask my mom a question in German. Her phrase for the week was “I don’t speak German”.
The next day we went into a town called Munster. I had never been there but my host family had recommended it as a fun city with pretty churches. We walked around Munster and enjoyed the old city with its 2 or 3 churches that are nothing like we have in the US and nothing my mother had ever seen before. She was surprised with how all these old buildings are simply just turned into shopping centers or grocery stores. On Monday I decided that I wouldn’t skip an entire day of school so I went into Wuppertal while my Mom and Host Mom spent the day together shopping. They had a fun day together and my host mom had a new story about silly Americans to tell her friends. While her and my mom went to breakfast my mother accidentally put pepper in her coffee since she thought the color of the packet meant it was sugar. All I know is at least she no longer tells the story of when I confused the word for Tree and Stomach (Baum and Bauch).
I had to take my mother back to the airport on Tuesday morning for her flight home. I had an amazing time showing her my new life her and also being able to show her Europe for the first time. Her visit was great and it was nice to have someone from home be with me for a week. It made me even more excited for when my entire family comes in March but also made me sad to realize how long that is from now.

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