Language, Emigration, and Opera

After several days of listening to another language being spoken (and translated), I have begun hearing it in my dreams. In my dreams, however, Doug isn't there to translate for me. In real life conversations, I frequently catch enough to know what is being discussed (music, composers, politics, a high school teacher), but not the details that give it meaning. It's an interesting position to be in, both part of something but not a full participant.

OTOH, when Margret and I are talking alone, we have gotten rather creative in discussing our lives in two languages. When all else fails, Google Translate gets us through.

We spent the day in Bremerhaven, a harbor city on the North Sea at the mouth of the Weser River. Most strands of my ancestral family were part of the massive flow of migration out of Switzerland and Germany in the eighteenth century, some through this very port. It's a timely reminder that we, too, were once immigrants.

In the evening we attended a premiere performance of a new opera at the Stadttheater Bremerhaven. Michael is a music critic and this was his assignment. We got the privilege of tagging along.