AboutGerman.net - Letters from Germany

Barbara Goodman Shovers writes:
“In July 2002 I moved to Europe with my daughter and husband. Though I have lived in nine US states, this is my first adventure abroad. When my husband first suggested a foreign assignment, my daughter and I thought: Great, we can use our Spanish. No, my husband replied, you can't. Okay, we said: We can use our French. No again, he responded.

So where do you want to go? we asked? Think sauerkraut, he said. Think gesundheit. Unfortunately those were about the only words we knew in German.

But we moved anyway. And with our perfect timing, we landed in Bonn where we missed the boom years of Embassy Row and arrived too early (and in a time of economic dismay) to participate in the city's promised international-business renaissance.

Every other week since August 2002 I have been sending a “Letter to America” to people back home. Over time my email list has grown to include Germans and Europeans, and parts of the letter are excerpted in local English-language publications. The letters touch on the adventures of an American trying to make a home in a very different culture. They veer in and out of humor, politics, art, philosophy, religion, and trying to navigate the idiosyncrasies of a country where the distance between coat hooks in grammar school hallways is strictly regulated.”

Who is Barbara? She is a writer and editor with undergraduate degrees in English and graphic communications from Washington University in St. Louis and an MBA from Northwestern. Her experience has included jobs in advertising, journalism, art education, not-for-profit PR, and university teaching. She helped found a parenting newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, and has written “gazillions” of newspaper and magazine articles—mostly on the arts, books, food, humor, business and parenting.

Barbara moved to Germany when her husband took a consulting contract with an auto parts company in Königswinter, a small city across the Rhine from Bonn. She and her family lived there for two years—from July 2002 until the summer of 2004.

NEXT > I'm Moving... (2002)
MORE > See 2002-2004 letters below...

You can read Barbara's letters in order
or skip around using the dated links below.

LETTERS FROM GERMANY 2002

1 > I'm Moving... May
2 > 11 August*
3 > 16 August*
4 > 24 August*
5 > September 6 > October
7 > November
8 > 10 December*
9 > More 2002 letters
soon!

LETTERS FROM GERMANY 2003

1 > 13 January
2 > 23 January
3 > 14 February
4 > 24 February 5 > 8 March
6 > 20 March
7 > April
8 > More soon

LETTERS FROM GERMANY 2004

1 > January 2004
2 > 10 January*
3 > 23 January*
4 > 4 February
5 > 17 February
6 > 29 February*
7 > March (soon)
8 > Coming up!

*NEW letters since last revision

Note: We will be adding more of Barbara's “Letters from Germany” in coming weeks.
Please check back for more.

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