Passports

Last week, Paul and I went to the U.S. Consulate to report Maggie’s birth and apply for her passport. With Max, we applied for his straight away when he was two weeks old because we had no idea how long it would take for him to receive it, and we needed it to return home to the United States.

Since I know you are wondering if she has dual citizenship, no, she doesn’t. Neither of our children have dual citizenship. In Germany, you only qualify for citizenship by blood. Or, if you have lived here for seven years, you can apply for citizenship. A funny little quirk on that rule is that a friend of mine who lived here for seven years was able to get dual citizenship for her child when he was born, though neither she nor her husband have German citizenship. Once our children are here for seven years, we can apply for citizenship for them, but I believe they would have to choose between the two countries as adults.

I’m getting off point however, so back to passports. We had to get the kid’s photos for their passports, which are good for five years. Because everyone knows that an infant is very representative of what they are going to look like a year later, much less five. The photos couldn’t be just any old photo of their face; oh no they have to be biometric photos with mouth closed, no smile, eyes wide open, and no obstructions.

A two week old baby only keeps their eyes open for a few minutes a day, so I originally tried to take the photos myself. Here are examples of my first attempt at photographing Max for his passport photo.

I thought I did a pretty good job at meeting the biometric requirements, and I even had them sized right for the biometric requirements, but we couldn’t get them to print out to the right size on the do-it-yourself photo printer at the photo studio. So we finally took him into a photo studio to have them done.

Max adamantly slept the entire time we were trying to get his photo taken. He slept through fire truck sirens on the street; he slept through my mother and I undressing him. We tried turning him upside down, everything. Nothing woke this kid up. Of course the whole time I was wondering why wouldn’t he sleep like this at home?

Finally, we had to leave the studio and come back when he was awake. Of course a two week old baby is usually only awake when they are hungry and want to eat. And, if you don’t feed them right away, screaming usually follows, which doesn’t work out so well for the biometric photo either. Finally I was able to feed Max back to calm, and we got the photo which will represent him for five years.

And just for kicks, this is what Max looks like now, two years later.

With Maggie, I wasn’t going to mess around. I took her straight to the photo studio, and got her photos taken and printed out. Only I forgot they needed to be a different size than the standard German passport photo, so I spent 16€ on photos that are too small, which of course I didn’t realize until the night before our consulate interview. However, now we have six perfectly darling biometric photos of Maggie.

So in desperation, since there are no 24-hour photo studios here, I did the only thing available to me, I tried to do the photos myself. This time I had a photo printer, granted it is a cheap photo printer, not commercial quality, but I would be able to get the photos the right size this time. Anyone, who has tried to photograph a two month old, knows how difficult it is to get them to smile for the camera. Of course, when you are trying to photograph them not smiling, they seem to do nothing else but ham it up for the camera.

We weren’t sure if the consulate would take a home-printed photo, but they were quite happy with them, so, this photo is going to her passport photo for the next five years.

On a side note, the passport application also asks for their weight, height, eye color and hair color…hmmmm.

Germanish

As we are learning German, picking up various German words here and there, we find ourselves often throwing in German words to our English speech. This often confuses others, like once when someone asked about Asia's breed, and I responded with Mischling. They looked at me funny, not sure if we were using the German word or if Mischling was the English name for an strange dog breed. Strange would be fitting since Asia is indeed a strange dog, both in appearance and behavior.

I recently signed up to receive a German word of the day via email, and this has become very useful. Sometimes I already know the word, but more often I don't, and slowly I'm building my vocabulary. Like yesterday I learned how to say "Es ist sehr bewölkt heute," which is incredibly appropriate today if I want to talk about the weather.

Earlier this week I received Rührei in my mailbox. This is incredibly useful, as I can't tell you how many times I'm at a restaurant and I see various forms of Ei (sounds like eye) on the menu. I know Ei means egg, and the part of the word before Ei is how the egg is cooked. Every time I ask Paul if he knows how the egg is cooked, and every time he doesn't. So, I order it anyways thinking once I receive my egg I'll have learned a new word. By the time the egg is served however, I can't remember if I ordered the Rührei or the Spiegelei. I mean to refer to a menu or my dictionary when I get home, but I always forget. So every time I return to a restaurant I'm faced with the same dilemma.

Excited I showed Paul my word of the day, and asked him if he knew what it meant. He didn't get it at first, so I covered the Rühr- with my finger so he could get and idea of what the word was about.

"Oh, it's how the 'eye' is cooked."

See how Germanish can get confusing, but also amusing?

Six Months in Munich

This past Friday, Paul got his six month review at work. Now, normally this wouldn't seem like such a big deal, but for us it is. In Germany, the first six months is a probationary period, and companies can fire the person with no reason, and the person can quit with no reason. After the probationary period has passed, it becomes increasingly difficult for a company to discharge an employee, and an employee has to give three months notice.

What seems commonplace to most Germans, had my husband near ecstasy. Knowing that his job is secure as long as the company is secure is a huge weight off his shoulders. He has really enjoyed his position, and he really enjoys working with his colleagues. To know that our place in Germany is secure, and we can stay here indefinitely, well that's just about sends him into the clouds.

Now, that our place here is looking more permanent, and we aren't going to be packing up a shipping container anyway soon, we've decided to start making some permanent decisions, like replacing the light bulbs hanging from our ceilings with real light fixtures, purchasing an espresso machine*, and searching for kindergartens**.

Yes, Munich, we've purchased an espresso machine, we are here to stay.

* More on the importance of owning an espresso machine in Munich later.

** More on our kindergarten search later.

Beginnings

Back in 2005, while my husband, Paul, was in the midst of his third year of law school at good ol' University of Baltimore, we started to contemplate our future. We could take the traditional route; an aspiring Patent Attorney, Paul could apply for positions at local B'more law firms, or the USPTO in DC. However, Paul and I weren't ready to throw in the towel and settle down. We started to look for a new adventure.

Ready to try out a new city, state and possibly even a new country, we started to look at Intellectual Property LL.M. programs, Masters in Law. In the United States, many legal professionals don't see the point in an LL.M., however, this was a great opportunity for Paul to further his expertise in Intellectual Property and specifically patent law. He applied to programs all over the United States, including San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle, Chicago and Washington, DC. He also applied to a program in London, and low and behold there was an English speaking program in Munich. Ultimately he was accepted into all of the programs, but the one in Munich had the most appeal.

The Munich Intellectual Property Law Center was still fairly new, only a couple years old since it's inception. MIPLC was a partnership between Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law, the University of Augsburg, the Technische Universität München, and the George Washington University Law School (some of the biggest names in Intellectual Property academia). But what impressed Paul, was that there was no permanent faculty, the classes were taught by the elite of the World's IP academia and professionals. Another deciding factor, was that Munich's location, pretty close to the center of Europe. What a great jumping point to visit other countries and cities in Europe. It was dual package, it would sooth our wanderlust and it would further Paul's career.

We moved to Munich in September of '06. Since I couldn't work, while we were in Munich, we decided it was the perfect time to get pregnant. I could fill a whole blog on being pregnant and giving birth in Munich, so I'm not going to say much right now, other than it was ultimately a great experience. I'll try to fill in other posts with reflections on being pregnant and giving birth here. In April '07, our son, Maximilian was born.

Four months later, albeit reluctantly, we returned to the USA. Paul finished his thesis in the States and started to look for a job. In January '08, he started his career at a law firm, as one of their first Patent Attorneys, we bought a home in Western Virginia, and we started to settle down. We made friends, joined clubs, and classes. We planned to live out our lives here, we thought our adventuring days were over.

However, not quite six months into our new "settled lives" Paul received an offer from the biotech company in Munich he had interned at during his LL.M. We were not looking for this, nor were we expecting it. It surprised us as much as we surprised our families, friend and colleagues when we accepted the position. We decided we weren't ready to throw in the towels on our adventure, and we didn't see any reason why our son Maximilian couldn't join the adventure with us. That brings us to today, here we are starting our lives in Munich once again. This time we have a different perspective on our lives here, as we are now Raising an American in Europe.