Neighbours
We just spent an evening with the nicest people in Germany, I think.
It seemed unlikely that we would ever have anything more than civil exchanges with our neighbours, even though the numbers (three other apartments above us in our building, all with people younger than, or around the age of thirty) should point to the opposite.
But then, this is Germany.
So we were quite surprised when the couple living in the house on our right waved at us across the fence one uncommonly hot April’s day. And then proceeded to introduce themselves, straightaway using their first names. A few weeks after, we ran into them on the street right outside. Without the setting of our backyards, I could hardly recognize them. Once I did, I realised how good they looked together, both blond and blue-eyed, both looking much younger than their years. And there was something that I missed the many weeks that I’d been here. The enormous, almost overwhelming, warmth generating from their eyes. Before the end of our little chat, we had been invited to our third home visit since our move here.
So we did, and even though most of the evening rushed by me in a flood of German, I had more fun, felt more welcome and at home than I’d been with previous hosts who had spoken to me entirely in English. She offered food to me in the way a Chinese mother would, that is, constantly, worrying that I was too shy to take anything (too shy to eat? me?). He gave us advice on living here with an avuncular affection that I couldn’t stop smiling at. We talked about the neighbourhood, Germany’s nightmarish lack of service, different languages, places to eat, the cities of Hamburg, Singapore, China. At the end of the evening, they told me to come over or call if ever the boy goes off for a conference and I were to be lonely.
Our first friends. Unbelievable, no? That the two warmest people in Germany live right next door to us.
