Welcome ex-pats!

Belinda over at born lippy has found my blog and has kindly introduced it to her other ex-pat blogging buddies. What a nice thing to do!

I'd told Belinda that I don't have an ex-pat friends in Germany but that's not completely accurate. I do have one American friend in Germany living in Thüringen - she tutored me in German years ago when she was working in Magdeburg. She married a German man and now she's working part time as a teacher and has two sons. Unfortunately I only get to see her once a year or so when she's up this way visiting her in-laws. With the exception of her, I don't know any non-Germans...with the exception of a few Turks and Russians but they've all lived here nearly their whole lives.

I know there are some Americans living in Magdeburg - I mean there's got to be because the idea of it just being me alone is ridiculous. Still, I never seem to run into any. English people either.

Still once in a great while I will hear English being spoken by a native speaker. A few years ago I happened to be in the mall. It was around Easter and the mall was teeming with people. As I wove my way through the masses I suddenly heard a man's voice in passing saying "Where is she?" and a woman replying "I think she's over there. Can you see her?".

Americans! Or Canadians - it's hard to tell with just a few words being spoken. Either way, I was hearing English from a native speaker.

I immediately turned around to see if I could see who was speaking. I am normally reticent to approach complete strangers for virtually any reason but these were native English speakers! By God, that practically makes you family!

I scurried around listening for any signs of English but I couldn't hear anything further. Evidently they got away and I didn't even have so much as a chance to ask them about why they'd happen to be in Magdeburg. There would have to be some reason - Magdeburg doesn't really stand out as a lure for American tourists.

So any of you ex-pats who are coming here for the first time, welcome! I hope you enjoy your reads here and hope you'll come back often. I'm looking forward to knowing others who live the ex-patriate life.

Oh - and get your hips on over to my Frappr map and stick in a pin. Bitte.