Success!

The first date, with "little" Fiona and her family, was a great success. We brought only wine (flower shop was closed, but Russ said it was too weir anyway, which I think it is NOT, readers feel free to weigh in) but drank coffee, tea, and ate peanut butter (mix sent from America! Special treat!) cookies. Delightful couple, cute kid, and weirdly, the Fionas, although all four parents were speaking English, chose to speak German to each other. Maybe it's because each child speaks English at home with at least one parent, and speaks German at kindergarten with other children? It was fascinating for us to hear our Fiona speak German since we don't get to hear it much (she only uses English at home)- it's perfect! She has no accent and a great vocabulary (well, a great three year old vocabulary, and it's not as good as her English vocabulary, but still) and speaks without hesitation. I was amazed to see her choose to use German even though we were all speaking to the children in English. How do their brains do that?

So, the next step is a second date- I might go to a playground or some such this week and invite the mum and Fiona- Dad works in Jena (teaching, in ENGLISH, which is very unique, cross-cultural communication between Germans and Americans or something like that) during the day, and well, here, it's not really playground weather much beyond about 4.30.

Only one faux pas- that we know of. I am certain that when we met she told me "My husband is from America" so tonight I asked if they had had two weddings- one in Germany and one in America- as is common with bicultural couples. They seemed a little awkward, sort of shrugged, and said that they weren't married. Not that I care- many many Germans, especially East Germans, aren't married and see no reason to do so (ok, I don't CARE, but I am always confused about why they don't marry until they have a five year old, I mean, it's a bit unusual to me) but I certainly wouldn't have ASKED them if I didn't have confirmation (and I did have! She called him husband and wears a weddingy looking ring on each ring finger!) that they were actually married. I hope I didn't make them feel weird, and I said, oh yes, I know a lot of Germans aren't really into getting married, etc, but uggggh.... I was embarrassed. I hate situations like that.

And yes, a lot of my students (8 years old) have parents who RECENTLY married. It's seriously like making a will or something for most Americans- they feel it's important, they want to do it, but they all tell me that they just haven't gotten around to it yet. I try to understand this blase attitude but fail. To not get around to something (At all! Anything! Even a will, life insurance, etc- all has been 'gotten to' by me!) is something I struggle to comprehend, but MARRIAGE? Not getting around to that? It seem so un-German.