Beautiful Hamburg

Although Hamburg is a large city of 1.8 million people, there are so many parks and green spaces for people to walk their dogs, play with their kids, and spend time together in nature. I have trails close to my apartment that go around farms and through a beautiful forest. I went back to my favorite running trail the other day to practice manual mode some more and was very happy with some of the shots I walked away with.

Didn't get to see any horses this day!

"I'm a... house girlfriend?"

As much as this whole moving abroad thing has been thus far an amazing experience, it certainly has taken a toll on my ability to have my own career. I came with Kev to Germany in the fall immediately following my college graduation. When I "cross the pond," I am issued a visa in order to spend more than the 3 months tourists are allowed in Germany. The visa I am issued is a residence visa and allows me to live here for the duration of the hockey season. It does not allow me the ability to legally work. We are only in Germany 8-9 months out of the year and I'm not near fluent in German so finding a company to give me a job and help me with a work visa on top of it isn't an easy feat. Not to mention the contracts in the DEL are much shorter than back home so we don't usually know going into each hockey season if we will be back in the same city with the same team the next season. Not the best information for a cover letter.

However, not having my own career can feel like a constant struggle. Amongst people my age, asking what one another does for work is a common question. A lot of people define themselves by their careers. It is very understandable as most of my family and friends back home work (at least) 40 hour weeks. When you spend that much time doing something, needless to say, it's a big part of your life. I don't currently work so I hate the question, "What do you do?" When I got that question over this past summer, I usually answered with, "Oh, I live in Germany because my boyfriend plays hockey there." Sometimes I get the answer "Oh, that's cool." But usually, I get the follow up question, "So, what do YOU do over there?" Now, I hate this question even more.

I know that nine times out of ten the people asking this question aren't asking it to be condescending, but because they are genuinely interested in how I spend my days here in Germany. However, I tend to find myself feeling offended when I get asked this question. Mostly because I don't have a concrete answer for them and at times that makes me feel very insecure and uncomfortable. "Uh... I... I'm... a... house girlfriend?" We're not married, so technically speaking, I'm not a housewife. I don't have a job that I go to daily and am no longer studying in University. I don't have a simple answer without giving them a run-down of the things I fill my time with. 

Trust me, not working this year is as foreign to me as moving here was. I've always had a job. I got my first job at a local ice cream shop as soon as I turned 16 and could legally work. During University, I not only was a full-time student and athlete, I had a part-time job, volunteered often, and was on a Student-Athlete Advisory board. As soon as Kev signed a hockey contract in Germany, I got on the computer and searched for the one thing I knew I could do there for work. I found a family to nanny for. I got incredibly lucky and found an amazing German family to work for and did that during our first two seasons. As lucky as I was with this family, my heart just wasn't into nannying anymore so I let them know I wouldn't be doing it this season. I still babysit for them from time to time, just not as often as I did the past two seasons.

I may not have a job and struggle with that from time to time, but I know I'm very fortunate. Kevin makes enough money to support the both of us and I am able to use this time to find and work on my own passions. Would a second income help even more? Of course it would, but it's just not in the cards right now.

I still don't have a simple answer to the "What do you do?" question, but I do have plans for this season. I've become very interested in photography and started a free online course. I will soon start studying to become a certified personal trainer. I help manage the vacation home we have in Florida in any way I can. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking and baking because I love to do it. I'll be signing up and training for a spring marathon. I babysit occasionally. And, I'm very lucky to be able to spend a lot of time with the man I love exploring this beautiful city we live in. I get to look into myself and find out what I want to do, because one day hockey will be over and we'll go back to North America and I'll be able to work, work, work. In the meantime, I'll learn about myself and enjoy not working 40 hours a week, because I'm sure one day, I'll want those carefree Europe days back.

Baby Druval IV

One of my goals for this hockey season was to learn how to use the DSLR camera we bought last year.  I wanted to be able to use our nice, big camera on modes other than just Automatic. It only took one Youtube video to make me realize photography is really neat and I am itching to learn more. I have since signed up for a free course with Photocritic Photography School. Haje Jan Kamps, a Dutch photographer, inventor, and writer runs the course alongside author and photography journalist Daniela Bowker. I will get a lesson and assignment every three weeks, with the first of those coming tomorrow. I am beyond excited to see what my first assignment is!

In the meantime, I wanted to practice, so I offered to take some pictures of a girlfriend's newborn baby boy. This was my first day shooting all my photos in the manual setting so I am proud of some of the shots I walked away with. Druval is an angel with the thickest of dark brown hair so he was a pretty easy subject! His big sister, Stella, jumped in for a few shots too. After only one makeshift "photoshoot," I noticed so many things that I would do different next time. I'll learn so much by simply doing. Knowing I edited them on iPhoto would most likely make professionals cringe, but, ya gotta start somewhere!