For three weeks I have become a commuter twice a week into the city.  I walk the 17 minutes to the train station after buying my ticket for the day. I wait at platform 4 at Eberswalde main station. I am starting to see a few people that are on repeat but mostly I see people going into the city for the day, backpackers, travelers, families and older couples, and those just exploring however the day brings them.

I get to the next station after reading for my 21 minutes on the train and then I go up one platform (leaving platform 9) and head for the other (usually another platform 4).  I get on the SBahn train until I get off (up and down more stairs) to a tram and finally to my nannying destination. I will go the reverse to return home with my book in hand.  I see different conductors, different people, different ways to travel on the train.  It seems its way more acceptable to eat on the regional train and looked down upon more on the city trains and trams for sure.  People read. People sleep. People stare out the window.

I saw a woman the other day with a full stroller set up for her pit bull dog.  She was comforted by the whole thing on the train while others just wondered about that scenario.

Where we are staying, just around the corner, we have discovered the forest and my homesick heart is really connecting to this place in the trees. It feels more like the landscape I know and miss.  While the city life offers so many wonderful things that we miss while we are here this is certainly offering us life while we are here for these weeks. We wander and meander. We gawk at the greens and the trees. The dogs run along side us off of their leashes and feeling free.  They run and explore and always check in.  We hold hands and take pictures and stand in awe of the light.

It is good to meander through and reconnect with the woods.  It feels fresher and like we are more at home in our world.  At least I feel this way and I watch my little family here start to thrive in that space.  This weekend we spent as much time as we could walking and talking.  We will return to the forest today because today I am not on the train.

And what better person to walk through life with than this one?  The more we are around each other each day the more we find out how different, delightful, and frustrating we are to one another.  The more we talk and delve deeper the more we fall in love with each other and also call out one another.  We truly support one another and it turns out we are very different from one another.  In this different space we are learning and learning from one another….for better or worse.  The expat life is made so much easier with someone to walk through it with, even if it comes with wrinkles and great delights. I am thankful for her.

She is the one who encourages my exploration and makes it possible to travel and learn.  She is the one who has supported me as I just enrolled in a university here to write, grow and be able to stay a bit longer.  She is the one who challenges me and picks me up when this world exhausts me . And she will probably hate that I am bragging so open and publicly about her here but still here it is and she deserves a public shout out every once in a while…just sayin… 🙂