From Bacon to Bratwurst (and a vegan cafe)

My life is about to be turned upside down and inside out and I can hardly contain my excitement. You see, comfort zones bore me and I’ve been in one for way too long now. We’ve been in the same city for eleven years, living in the same house for seven years, I’ve owned my own business for almost six years, and other than two brief stints of maternity leave, I’ve mostly been a working mom. I’m bored.

So when my partner came home and told me he might have an opportunity to spend a semester in Europe doing research, I didn’t need convincing at all. From the moment the idea entered our home, I was sold. In fact, all I wanted to know was when he could turn the “might” to “will”, i.e. when would we know for sure. Over time, the details ironed themselves out – a letter of invitation from the university, finding an apartment, purchasing airline tickets…

And now the time has come. Next week, we’ll be leaving our home on the outskirts of Ottawa, Canada and heading via France to spend the spring and summer of 2010 in Berlin, Germany.

From one capital city to another capital city, but worlds apart

One of the things that excites me most about this opportunity is how different it will be. Different for us and different for the kids. All the things we don’t like about where we live now are going to disappear as we get on that plane, as are all of the things that we love (except each other, of course).

Let me paint you a picture of how different it will be, outside of the obvious language difference. We’ll be moving from the rural outskirts of Ottawa (22 people per square kilometre) to the most densely populated part of Berlin (12,800 people per square kilometre.) We’ll be going from an area with a median annual family income of $67,000 to one where the average family lives on less than $24,000 a year (and remember that it is cheaper to live in Canada than it is to live in Germany, which just compounds that difference).  We’re moving from an area where only 3% of the population are immigrants and more than 90% are at least 3rd generation Canadian to an area where close to 25% of the population and at least 1/3 of the children are immigrants. In other words, we’re moving from a rural, middle class, homogeneous neighbourhood to an urban, low income, ethnically diverse neighbourhood.

That only covers the demographics. The differences in our natural, cultural and societal surroundings are going to be profound. We’ll go from looking at trees, lakes, deer and ATVs to passing by punks, graffiti, night clubs, and eccentric cafés. We’ll go from leaving our neighbourhood to escape nature (damn black flies and mosquitoes), to leaving our neighbourhood to find nature. We’ll go from needing a car to get anywhere at all to not having a car and instead relying on walking and public transportation.  Instead of making a special trip to go to a restaurant, we’ll have at least 8 of them on our block alone (and even a fun vegan café within easy walking distance) . And thankfully, we’ll be going from having only dial-up Internet at home (the downside of living in the woods) to having high speed Internet 24/7 (ahhhhh…..).

For me and my kids, one of the big changes coming on this trip is that instead of Daddy being at home and Mommy going to work, Mommy will be at home and Daddy will be going to work. This will give me a much needed opportunity to come back into the cave and reconnect with my kids.  It will also be an opportunity for us to try new things together. We won’t be able to take their play structure, their bicycles, and most of their toys and games with us. So we’ll be discovering new things together, like the local kids ceramic workshop, going to the many parks in Berlin, visiting the Farmer’s market, going to the Zoo and the museums, playing at the Lego Discovery Centre, attending the Karneval der Kulturen (Carnival of Cultures), going to the pool, checking out where the Berlin Wall was and much much more.

No place for children?

When I first started doing my research on Kreuzberg, the area of Berlin we will be living in, I came across a post on a Berlin message board. A woman who had attended the Carnival of Cultures in the past and now has a 18 month old child, was planning to move to Berlin and was interested in living in Kreuzberg. She asked people whether it would be an appropriate place to raise a child. The answers she got back were almost unanimous in saying no. They said there is too much night life. Too much riff raff. Too many immigrants in the schools (no one speaks German…the horror). No big backyards where kids can roam freely.

I don’t know if I would feel differently if we were moving there forever (possibly I would, because I like nature too much), but all of the things they were listing off as negatives are the things that are drawing me towards Kreuzberg. The opportunity for me, my partner, and our children to see and experience something vastly different from what we see everyday is compelling. I expect it to be extremely rewarding for my children to be exposed to different cultures, different lifestyles, and different socio-economic conditions.  I see this as an opportunity for them to improve their language skills, to see true diversity first hand, and to experience a different culture. I do expect that we will see things that will make us uncomfortable, but I hope to use those as a learning experience rather than recoiling in horror.

Will you join us on our journey?

From next week until my return in early August in time for BlogHer10 in New York, I’ll be coming to you from Europe. I hope to write about parenting differences, about the impact on my kids, about the things that we experience, and about social issues of importance. I hope you’ll join me as I share the highlights from our journey.

Photo credits:

• Kids in lake: My photo
• Child painting: Wolfgang Staut on flickr
• Punks in street: seven_resist on flickr