The twelth

Somehow, I have a hard time remembering much at all about what happened ten years ago today. I could tell you exactly what we did those other days: the ninth, the tenth...the eleventh, the thirteenth.

Yes, we arrived, we ate, we slept, we woke up the next day. We watched Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten for the first time together. Not that I understood anything, other than it was a daytime soap like any other, one H had watched nearly everyday as a student. Good times, bad times.

I could tell you about all the apartments we saw, the order in which we saw them even. Genau. Exactly. I could tell you how I learned that word on the 10th of September, ten years ago - H and our relocation agent used it over and over again as we breezed through apartments.

On September 11th, we picked our favorite. No, it wasn't our favorite, it was the one we picked - a quick choice, we didn’t have much time to think it over. It was practical. Well-located. Big rooms - representative, as the relocation agent said. Yes, she wanted us to have an apartment where we could entertain (nevermind that we had about 3 pieces of furniture at the time)...It was a place where I would learn two languages, the names of flowers and how to throw a dinner party (the first was a disaster). How to feel comfortable alone. 

Of course, I could tell you exactly where we were between three and four o'clock that day. It was a fancy hotel, the first we’d ever stayed in together. A place where politicians, even presidents stayed. I was uncomfortable. "You're American, aren't you?" the man at the front desk asked.  "You should go to the television." We walked over, joined lots of fancily clad business people. I remember a very blond woman with a tidy ponytail, crying. Mein Gott.

Two more words. It's strange, but I don't remember much of anything about what happened next other than we checked out, changed hotels, as planned. The company only covered two nights. September 12th, I'm trying to piece it together. I think it was the day I got a black coat. That would make sense, it was cold. I remember wearing it all the time there and then never again when we moved out of the city on a late spring day a few years later.