Part 16 - Walking About

We’re winding down our ninth week here. Addie is 36 weeks pregnant. She’s been on maternity leave for nearly a month. Up until two days ago she’d walked more than 10,000 steps every single day of leave. I seldom think about a car and when the idea does come up, she’s quick to agree. It turns out that living in an urban center with reliable transit will drive the idea of a car right out of your head.

We can get everywhere we need to go, oftentimes via multiple routes. Doctors appointments, at the clinic and the hospital. A book club north of town for me. A women’s club meeting for Addie west of town. The vet for a Bubba’s issue. Immigration offices for EU Blue Cards. The hardware store. Lunch with a friend. Drinks with an acquaintance. Maybe we’re taking longer to arrive at the destination, but we’re both convinced that the hassle of parking, insurance, maintenance, and the relatively likely eventual break-in all combine to pay us back for that time.

Analysis aside, the buses and trams are pleasant. They are generally appropriately sized, safe, clean, and make for excellent people watching. There are the mothers pushing prams, the dads caressing kiddos. The high school kids on the way to lunch, or hustling to or from school. There’s the occasional 10 year old, in a suit, traveling alone. Solemnly jamming to tunes, or vids, or whatever the kids consume these days. If the mood calls for it, sometimes I’ll read.

This won’t be a full sidebar, but Addie has finished 11 books this year. A new high water mark for her. This morning, we sat on the couch and read together for a few minutes between breakfast and our first errands. Toes tooked under a blanket, with Bubbas pawing for pets. It was a delightful, quiet moment of peace before we welcome Bump B. I recently started The Stranger and, because it’s so short, I’m nearly through it. Boy, it’s wild (more on that later in a Sidebar)!

In general, we don’t need a car. And we don’t want one. This is cemented further by having our day to day needs met literally within our neighborhood. There’s a great cafe that reminds us of a cocktail bar back home. A grocery store, well-stocked enough to meet all but extreme needs. A good walking loop for Bubbas that includes several kilometers of sloping, wooded trails. And a fully-fledged football stadium that summons to mind a blend of Ted Lasso and Major League.

We recently attended our second football match since touching down here, and we’ve loved them both. We’ve now seen international teams play in three different countries. At no point in my life did I think that’d be something I would be able to say. It’s also bizarre that I’m about to receive a formal residence card for someplace I wasn’t born.

Alright, back to football. Our neighborhood stadium is literally a stone’s throw from our apartment. It provides several hundred covered seats to protect from the wind and rain that will persist for much of the season. Seating is only available on one side of the pitch. The other side is a parking lot for 50 cars, and a bus stop (likely the one we’ll use to get to the hospital when Addie’s laboring). Both ends are closed in by neighborhood streets.

We watched our boys thrash the opposition 6-0 after a nil-nil first half. Woohoo! There were a group of 10 fans near the field with a drum and megaphone. The kind of group that will remind you “fans” is short for “fanatics.” They sang and danced for 85 of the 90 playing minutes and were provided a beer each, for each goal, for their efforts. Let’s hope their car situation is the same as ours.

We’re continuing to learn and adjust our daily lives. That’s why we’re here. To do the work and actively engage with each other instead of passively clicking through days that look and feel the same.

Maybe our opinion about a car will change. Maybe we’ll end up in the zombie state we designed our lives to avoid. Both feel increasingly unlikely. But there’s only one way to find out.

Onwards.