Checking out the New Neighborhood

 A typical, busy street in Wiesbaden, similar to the one Josefa and I checked out.

That first day of winter quarters in Wiesbaden, Josefa and I decided to get out of Mutti's hair and check out our new neighborhood. We went to the hook by the door, grabbed our coats and struggled into them while we barreled down the steps which Vati had already connected to the outside of the front door.

We meandered around the strange caravans. A tall, skinny man talked to Vati, a screwdriver in his hand. A woman stared out a curtained window, listening to them. She smiled without looking at us.

Josefa and I ambled along the fence and meandered down the path our tractor had come. Houses and shops beckoned in the near distance.

“Let’s see if there are any stores,” I suggested. “Maybe we can even find our school.”

“Yes, let’s.” Josefa sped ahead of me.

We turned a corner onto a paved road. A small bakery beckoned with cookies and pastries in the window. We sniffed the sweet smell of baked goods, and admired the wares through the window. A display of my favorite, a pastry called Amerikaner, the American, made my mouth water. The baker had placed the pastries, cone shaped and with white frosting on the top, in a pyramid of five on a plate. I imagined eating one, while Josefa pointed to the round doughnuts, called Berliner, covered in coarse sugar.

 We told each other how good they would taste, and went on. Soon a small intersection distracted us from our stomachs. We marched through it, to see what kind of other stores we could find.

The next road was asphalted instead of cobble-stoned, and cars sped by. Stores with large show windows lined it. Women with shopping nets bustled along the sidewalk, men with briefcases, bundled into warm coats, hurried around us. We looked, but didn’t see a school. The sun disappeared behind the buildings, and I shivered in my thin coat.

More to reassure myself instead of Josefa, I said, “Let’s go home.”