The Storm Before The Calm: Moving Countries Is A Terrible Idea
The change of year is a stressful time every year. And moving countries during it doesn't make it any easier.
Christmas in the Au household is a magical time. Going to protestant church for the nativity play despite only one of us being protestant, decorating a tree that is always just slightly askew, eating your own body weight in home-made cookies and being stressed out and irritable. A beautiful holiday tradition.
And this year was no different. Especially with the move to Canada looming right at the start of the new year.
Back in October, I had quit my cushy, well-paid work-from-home software job with amazing colleagues, flexible working hours and unlimited vacation to take some time out from sitting in front of a screen and instead explore the endless wilderness of Canada.
Foreseeing the move to be a full-time job, I had quit my paying, actual, full-time job at the end of November which gave me 3 weeks to organise the move out of my apartment. But instead of focussing on the move out of the apartment or even the country, less important non-urgent things got done with a fervour and efficiency that you can only see when I’m procrastinating on really big life-altering tasks. But the joint forces of eBay Kleinanzeigen, my dad with his car, my sister with her gym-steeled muscles and my found downstairs neighbour/found brother with the tiniest bit of space in his apartment managed to clear out my apartment just in time for the handover.
Some of the less important, non-urgent things that got done were retail therapy in the form of buying an exorbitant number of lenses for my camera and deciding to start this blog. So while it wasn’t as important as clearing out my apartment and preparing my move to Canada it wasn’t completely useless. Just, I could have saved myself some grey hairs by buying the lenses and working on the blog after I had sorted the move.
And so my time in Berlin came full circle. It started with my dad driving all my things in the family van from Hanover to Berlin and it ended, almost exactly 5 years later, with my dad driving my things back from Berlin to Hanover.
I was extremely lucky to have a bunch of helping hands getting me through that move both with physical and mental support.
The highlight of Hanoverian Christmas season is definitely the city Christmas market. Unlike most Christmas markets you’ll come across, the main Christmas market takes over the whole old town and is a sprawling, connected collection of themed “sub-markets”. There’s the stereotypical commercial one in the town square, the magical forrest in a small fake pine forrest (with actual trees), a Finnish Christmas village with all the questionable fish “delicacies” you’d expect and my personal favourite, the medieval market between the river side and the old medieval town wall.
I had just arrived from Berlin when my sister and her boyfriend dragged me out to the market. Promises of “Our treat! We’re paying for you” as well as the looming closing date got me out of the house. And like every year, it was very much worth it. While the number of stands seems to have decreased a bit and the prices have increased, it was still a nice outing. Luckily for the “kids” I didn’t go all out so the evening didn’t turn out too expensive. But I did get in all the traditional foods that I’m having every year, starting with The Meat Stick. Which is exactly what it sounds like. It is roughly 30cm of pork steak on a stick. Now, I consider myself a Berlin Vegetarian (if the options are at least decent I’ll always go for the vegetarian option), but I just cannot say no to the annual meat stick.
The other traditional foods, while definitely not healthier were vegetarian at least. Crêpe with Smarties which was a rare but welcome departure from sugar and cinnamon crêpe, and a bag of Schmalzkuchen.
The traditional food at home was my mum’s home-made Christmas cookies (Plätzchen). Due to time constraints, there were fewer kinds than usual this year; “only” 12, an increase from last year’s 10 but less than earlier years. But still, my mum produced enough cookies in total to feed a small village. Or barely enough to feed all our family and friends that are supplied every year. Every spare minute in my mum’s free time was spent in the kitchen making sure that no one would loose out on her delicious treats.
This year’s Christmas celebration was, thankfully, a smaller, more relaxed affair. As replacement children for my parents now that I’m emigrating, I brought along my neighbour and his girlfriend and those poor souls had to endure Christmas in the Au household. As is tradition in our home, we very much separate Advent and Christmas. The Christmas tree was only decorated on the morning of Christmas Eve with of course the same wooden figurines we’ve been using as long as time remembers. Baubles will never make it into our tree! Parallel to the decorating, people are wrapping up presents that they definitely didn’t go out and buy just the day before. Luckily, everyone’s aged out of long wish lists and needing gifts so the pile under the tree was manageable. The new gift-giving problem that has crept in instead is that people do not have any wishes so that the lists are very short or non-existant leading to stressed messages being exchanged about late or short wish list submissions.
Once the Christmas tree is sufficiently outfitted it is time for a quick break until everyone heads to the local protestant church for a short ceremony that is 70% nativity play. The play is different every year, written and performed by the current batch of confirmands, 13-years-olds who will be inducted into church the following spring.
As soon as church ends with the traditional Stille Nacht sing-along, everyone rushes home to open the door for the waiting grandma (catholic, so not at protestant church) and brother and sister-in-law (heathens, so not at church either).
After a light dinner, it is finally time for Bescherung (gift giving). Since the gifts are either tradition such as the annual photo calendar for mum, dad and grandma, or lifted straight from the wish lists of people, there aren’t too many surprise. And the real gift are the filled cookie platters. Which are never filled for long. Old sibling rivalries flare up about who ate how many of what kind of cookie but with age comes wisdom and the physical fights have turned to evil looks and snide remarks.
Once everyone’s had their fill of cookies and presents are sufficiently “oooh”d and “aaah”d over, people are heading back home to catholic mass or to entertain their aptly named cats Lucifer and Lilith with Christmas wrapping paper.
This year, Christmas and boxing day were a quiet afair. While a few years back, both days were family reunions with the grandparents on each side, it has slowed and sized down over the last few years. The grandchildren are starting to have their own families with children so the generation has moved down a level and the number of people making the celebrations has slimmed out. But that just meant that there were two free days to go flood sight-seeing.
Because not only the Christmas spirit had come to Hanover. A bunch of different environmental factors (mostly the amount of rain that came down the last few weeks) led to extensive flooding all over Lower Saxony and Hanover wasn’t immune. It was lucky and prepared enough though with high river banks and designated flooding zones to not have too many flooded cellars. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t see the effects of the tons of extra water that was filling the city’s rivers.
The big event over the change of the year was my move though. And the German state doesn’t make it easy. As if the move in and of itself wasn’t stressful enough. Lots of forms to fill out, addresses to change and ids to get stamped. I can only recommend to never sign a contract with anything. Tax office, health insurance, bank, … all terrible ideas and such a hassle to sort out for a move abroad. Luckily I had gotten most of the admin done while I was still in Berlin so there wasn’t too much left. But what was left was just enough to stress me out.
The morning of my flight came with a 4am start and maybe 2.5 hours of sleep if that. To say goodbye and prepare me for the cold weather up in Yukon, the weather in Hanover had dropped the thinnest layer of snow which I very much appreciated. Much more appreciated though were my parents and my sister who got up with me and dropped me off at the airport to say goodbye. I left them at the entrance to the airport to drive back home and catch some more sleep while I was looking forward to be awake and doze a few hours at best for the next 24 hours.
Canada here I come! Well, Wisconsin first. But then: Canada here I come!
