I’ve been grappling with really intense feelings of homesickness and a general sense of a lack of belonging in the German speaking world lately. Simultaneously and somewhat paradoxically, I’ve started to notice behaviors and characteristics (like just trying to use the British spelling of behavior…) that are so fucking Germanic I shock myself.

This morning I went to the bakery, got fresh dark bread, then was drawn to the sausage/cured meats store where I proceeded to drool over various sausages, meat spreads, and every kind of ham imaginable. At 9am on a Monday morning. Also, it was completely packed with lovely Viennese people stocking up on ham for the week. It was wonderful.

After an agonizing debate, I settled on some barlauch ham (barlauch is a plant that grows throughout Central Europe and tastes like grassy-garlic. It’s the best) and proceeded to go home and eat half a loaf of bread, Gouda cheese, ham, and honey for breakfast. I am now going to go to a coffee house to work on my thesis.

Hella German! But as this transformation in personal habits is going on, I also feel so unbelievably alienated. My language skills have completely stagnated, I have come to the resolute conclusion that I will never, ever, no matter how long I am here, understand these people in a romantic context, and I really want a good taco.

So I deal with these feelings by staying in bed and watching American TV and generally feeling sad, then going out and living quotidian life in a very German way at the same time (blabla I live in Austria but it’s basically the same). 

Worst of all, I completely acknowledge that this is a curse I’ve cast upon myself that will never, ever go away. If I decide to stay here, I will perpetually feel homesick for California and long for some sort idealized young-adult-in-a-U.S.-city life that I’ve constructed in my head. If I go home, I will feel just as alienated as I now feel here and probably even be more sad about not living in Europe and doing things like eating loaves of dark bread with ham at 9am.

Maybe Viennese coffee and a dingy cafe and rude waiters and cigarettes will make me feel better.