Learning to be Happy

These are some of James' very first smiles... taken this morning, mind you.

As you can see, there are two pairs of feet in these pictures... one belongs to little Emily.  

She LOVES coming in my bed in the morning, where I'm usually hanging out with James, and getting in on all the fun.  

She loves trying to make him smile.

When I exclaimed, "Look!  He's learning how to smile!"

She responded with delight, "Yeah!  He's learning how to be happy!"

Which got me to thinking...

Is being happy something we LEARN how to do?

I admit I haven't been my happiest these first six months in Germany.  Naturally, the beginning of a three year tour in a country I've never lived in, with a language I've never learned, and with weather that is oh so different from the paradise of Monterey, CA, is going to be a bit challenging. 

 I haven't "learned how to be happy" here.

But I sort of had a reawakening this past weekend when my friend Ariel came to visit. 

 This is Ariel:

She was my next door neighbor in California.  She's the kind of  neighbor you want to have.   She's the neighbor whose house you could just walk into and raid the cupboard for a tsp of cinnamon when you were in a pinch.  She brought us home baked goodies ALL the time.  She was so good with my little girls.  And she was just fun to be around.

So, she moved with her family to ITALY at the same time that we moved to Germany!  So, we're kind of neighbors again.  She drove the seven hours with her three kids to come see me and the new baby.  

Her oldest Ellie, with James

Lydia leads the pack after buying ice cream from the ice cream man.  They act like the own the place, don't they?

A visit to the Ritter Sport Chocolate Museum

 And chocolate store.  Yep, that's ALL chocolate on the shelves.  Em was in heaven.

Ariel knows all things German.  She lived here for nine years as a kid when her dad was stationed here.   So it was fun to have her because she taught me a TON about living in Germany... stuff I'd  never pick up on if she hadn't revealed it to me.  Many of these revelations happened in the grocery store.  

 It was fun to see how excited Ariel was shopping in a German grocery store.  She knew the ins and outs... including nonalcoholic beer, which she doesn't think twice about drinking.

  

Apparently all those huge glasses of beer we see being consumed at every biergarten don't necessarily contain alcohol.  I guess they have pretty strict blood alcohol level laws when it comes to driving.  Who knew? 

However, I did learn that the legal age for consuming alcohol in Germany is 14!!  Yep, as long as you're in the company of a parent.  And at age 16 you're allowed to drink without a parent!

That is nuts.

Ariel bought a crate of Mezzo Mix, which I learned is orange flavored coke.  I'm a huge fan of Cherry Coke, and thought Mezzo Mix wasn't half bad!

She showed me all the good yogurts, sauces, soups, drinks, baby formulas and cereals, and many other foods I would have never tried!  Here are a few:

Jager sauce for Schnitzel.  According to Ariel, delicious

Brown mustard.  Would you know this was mustard by the looks of it?  Me neither.

Their version of vegetable stock.  I flavored my brown rice with it and it is YUMMY.

And you get the idea.  

 Ariel had no problem whippin' out the German left and right either.  She hasn't take any German classes, just remembers it from when she lived here as a kid.  My German is virtually non existent.  Which I'm sure adds to my discomfort here.  I'm convinced there's a direct correlation between how comfortable you feel in a foreign country and how well you know the language.  Why do I love France so much?  Because I speak French.  Why does Ben love Poland so much?  Because he speaks Polish.  It really makes a HUGE difference.  

So I've recommited myself to learning German.  Even if I never become fluent, just some knowledge helps build confidence.

And so, in a very round about way (I'm sorry this post is so long), I'm trying to say that I am going to LEARN how to be happy here... to make the most of our three years... to stop thinking about all the things I'm missing out on at home, and just embrace our experience here.