Hier nun ein weiterer Auszug aus meinem Memoir in Progress. Dies soll als Eröffnungskapitel dienen. Vielleicht könnt ihr mir ja Feedback geben, ob dies als Einstieg gut passt. Danke!!!

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It happened how it does so often: girl meets boy. Girl and boy fall in love. Boy is from a strange land far far away. Boy has to go back. Girl doesn’t want to end the relationship and agrees to move – to America.

I had visited Los Angeles with said boy twice before moving there. My main memories from these visits were that one, my butt hurt whenever we were in the car because you have to drive very long distances and the roads were in really bad condition. The second memory is my boyfriend’s Dad putting us in separate rooms because we weren’t married. I thought it was odd because it certainly couldn’t be for ‘moral’ reasons as his Dad was married for the third time. At the time, I didn’t know that this would be one of many examples of illogic contradictions and sometimes outright hypocrisy I would encounter through my years in L.A. Many more experiences that did not and often still don’t make sense to me were headed my way.

I moved to the U.S. on September 21st, 2001. Yes, only ten days after 9/11. It was an odd feeling to move to a country at war. Growing up in Austria and also living in Germany for a few years, I had a certain ‘idea’ of what war meant. Elderly neighbors and family members were witnesses of World War II. I grew up in a house that had– as was required by law – a bunker you can go to in case of an air raid. Sure, my parents used it to stock potatoes and it had no door – but what was required was there.

So what did it mean when America was at war? Not much for the regular citizen who didn’t have a family member in the armed forces. My now fiancé was not allowed to drive up to the airport LAX the day I arrived. There was police everywhere. Men dressed in black uniforms with a stern look on their faces holding weapons I had only seen on TV before were patrolling the airport. I landed after dark and LAX seemed like a ghost town in a zombie movie. Anyone who has ever been to LAX during ‘normal’ times knows that it is anything but ghostly there. It’s a bustling lively place with lots of honking cab drivers and lost tourists desperately looking for that train that takes you to the city center. Let me save you some time here – there isn’t one! So stop looking! L.A. doesn’t have either – no airport train and no city center.

So when he picked me up with a bouquet of flowers in his hands, I had already been on two flights – Munich to Philadelphia and Philadelphia to L.A. On the first flight a bunch of drunken Germans caused a ruckus and the air marshal had to step in. Funny and at the same time scary fact: the air marshal was way over 60. The guys were in their early 30s. The air marshal’s presence did not make me feel secure at all. I was crying for most of that flight holding onto a stuffed animal for dear life. I was so scared of moving to a ‘war zone’ that I felt no shame about seeking comfort the same way a toddler does. The stuffed animal I was clinging onto was an orange mouse from a famous German kids’ TV show. The middle aged German man – who by his own account liked to wear a suit and a tie when flying – tried to involve me in a conversation by saying “Ah, I see you are also a fan of ‘the mouse’”. We started a nice long talk about the TV shows we grew up with and where we were going in the U.S. He made me forget about my uncertain adventure in the big foreign land.

Going through a security check in Philadelphia was a long procedure. There were armed security guards everywhere. The airport was nearly empty. Any sharp objects were removed from people’s luggage. Smokers had to fly without lighters or matches. You could cut the fear and the tension with a not-TSA-approved knife. I was scared. Hey, I grew up on a farm. I have seen pigs and cows get slaughtered but I had never seen this many weapons in person before. I was afraid to say the wrong thing even if I had nothing to hide. So when the TSA guy asked me if I had any food on me I told him I had some cookies in my backpack. He looked at me as if I just told him that I was chewing gum and making a mockery of his job. “I said food!” I asked if cookies weren’t food. He looked annoyed and waved me through. I was confused. Cookies. Not food?