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Friday, December 23, 2005
Köln


Language class ends this morning. We took our test yesterday and I’m about 50% convinced I failed the darn thing. As I was walking home a little earlier than usual I felt a change begin to set in, an internal adjustment, rather like my ears popping when I drive down through the Catskill mountains on the way to Manhattan. And although the recognition hit me just as suddenly as an ear pop, the adjustment was slow coming on, is still coming on, and may take another week or month or year to settle in. I don’t know if any of this makes since, but the “something” that clicked inside my head yesterday told me that Phase one of life in Cologne had ended. I don’t know yet what Phase two will be or how it will feel or how I will react to it, it’s a process, but Phase one was definitely over and the click of recognition that hit me as I walked south on the Hansaring and looked to my right to see the towering T-Mobile antenna (which rivals the Dom as the ubiquitous skyline image in Köln) stayed with me all day and is with me still this morning. I live here now, this is not a holiday or a business trip or a documentary film – this is life happening.