Today I’m on a little trip to home. Which is kind of ironic, because exactly 8 years ago today, we arrived at SFO and started our new life in California.
This morning we left the house at 7.05am (yawn) and my 12year old daughter, who is doing a “shadow day” at the German International School of Silicon Valley said to me: “It feels like we are in Germany somehow.” I replied: “That’s because we ARE actually going to Germany.” Another German mom I know whose daughter is a student at GISSV tells me that her daughter goes to school in Germany and in the afternoon, she returns to the US. This school is very German! Which is the whole point of sending your kid to a school like that and not to a regular American public school. That’s one reason why we are considering sending our girl there, because she is very American and I personally think she could use some German socialization.
Anyway, I dropped her and another friend’s daughter off, wished them fun and a good experience and went back to my car. I sat there in the parking lot for a while, sipped my cold coffee and watched all the cars driving up to drop off their brood. BMW, Audi, VW, Mercedes, Tesla, BMW, Audi, VW, Mercedes, Tesla, BMW…. You get the picture. The clientele here is not really diverse. Wealthy German or German-American families mostly. But we are in the Silicon Valley and the average household income is almost $ 100.000 while the average income of the whole US is only $ 53.000.
After most of the crowds got rid off their kids, I decided to drive to Downtown Mountain View to get a new shot of the two pieces of the Berlin Wall that are exhibited in front of the public library on Franklin Street. They are supposed to remember the role that the US played in the reunification of West and East Germany. “The World must not forget that it was America’s and many other countries resolve and their its political and economic ideals that made this bloodless revolution and most significant historical event possible.” A piece of German history in Mountain View, California. A piece of my country that made me a bit sentimental.
I walked down Castro Street where you can find an abundance of restaurants and cafés. It’s a beautiful little centre of Googletown. You see tons of cyclists and pedestrian because the light rail and Caltrain are right there. I love that, it feels so much livelier than my little suburb down south.
It was only logical that my way now led me to “Esther’s German Bakery” on North San Antonio Road to have breakfast. This is a neat little café with delicious German coffee and baked goods.
The breakfast selection is awesome and they even offer quite a good lunch menu. I love the “Schlemmer Breakfast” and the “Bavarian Breakfast”, but today I just had the “Student Breakfast”, but I also got lots of pretzels (It always physically hurts me to say or write “pretzel”!! It’s a BREZEL, for pete’s sake!) and cake to celebrate our anniversary accordingly. Esther’s also has a nice little “Biergarten” in the back. I like to come here once in a while to enjoy some German treats, but I must say that the interior and the decoration are not impressive. I think if you claim to be a German café and bakery you should at least serve the “Marmelade” in nice little serving bowls instead of plastic packaged jams and the fake flowers in small glass vase filled with coffee beans are just tasteless. This place could definitely use a redo with a whole lot more style. Now the coffee is almost gone, I’m writing this post and an older man with a big bavarian accent is ordering “pretzels” to go.
My next stop will be “Dither’s Gourmet Meats & Wurst-Haus” to get “Würstchen” for dinner. Then I’ll do my shopping, meet a German friend for lunch and return to the GISSV to pick up my hopefully not traumatized daughter from Germany. Then we will have a talk to the head of Middle School in German about the advantages of a German School. I think I need a 100 % American burger for lunch! Ha, that must be my intercultural identity that just spoke up. Have a great weekend!
