Ordering still water in Germany is worse than ordering horse meat in Portland. And you'll get tap water, if they don't just kick you out. I had forgotten about this because I'm a bad German that's why I moved to Canada 16 years ago - when my mom came to visit and I did not have sparkling water in my kitchen (needs to be on the counter, not in the fridge!!) she almost disowned me.
Baaahahahah! This comment made my LIFE. Also, the extra bit about needing to be room temperature - DID NOT KNOW THAT. Thank you, thank you, for confirming this awesomeness, Kerstin!!!!
Yep still a thing. My mother is German and immigrated in the 60's and I went home with her to visit family several times and when I asked for regular water you'd have thought I asked someone to give up their first born. Worse was asking for ice cubes. They finally dug up some trays for me to use while I was there. I think this is why my mother never drank water much. She too loved Club Soda lol. As to our fine rural living, it may seem like two countries and in some ways it is but I can tell you it's slowly changing. I live where it's super rural / off grid even for many (no electricity, no toilet, no water) and here you might have a few with that same mentality but more often than not you don't anymore. Sure we have the local drunk whom we avoid like the plague if she's in a car, but otherwise everyone is accepted. Everyone is pretty much supported by others in the community and we have a real sense of community. You need a hand? Someone will come and help you even if they don't like you lol. Meth heads are here too. But you don't see them much. What I love about living rural is like you said, the peace, the outdoors, the drives, the nature, the quiet (except when all the mushers huskies are howling but even that is beautiful). I can work here in peace, photograph, write, create. If I want something progressive I drive to town, but I always love coming home to the peaceful life. I grew up in the heart of Denver. I don't miss it. The longer you stay in the sticks, the more it will grow on you until you become unfit to live anywhere else.
THESE STORIES OF THE GERMAN RELATIVES, BAAHAHAHAH!!!! I've tried to feed several of my American friends club soda, even mixed with cranberry juice, and they just don't know what to do. 😂 I think La Croix has made it more fashionable, but I haven't seen a single can of that around here....lol.
And, I'm pretty sure you live in the town we all want to live in: the one from the TV show Virgin River!!!!!
I love sparkling water, but like Soleil brand best except for the German one if you can find it is my ultimate favorite. Gerolsteiner Mineral Water. I've not seen Virgin River, guess I better look it up and watch it lol
What sticks do you live in? We are south of Denver near Elizabeth (which used to be so far out people shivered at the thought of traveling there.) Our county is very...conservative...but we, free thinkers that we are, have been fine. We have neighbors who are conservative, liberal, and fence straddlers like us. I think everyone on this road decided to get along. It’s been sweet. Nobody even rolls their eyes any more when I tell them I talk to animals (and sometimes dead people).
I live outside of Fairbanks Alaska! I am very familiar with Elizabeth! I lived in Pine for 18 years, and Strasburg for 8 years before that. Grew up in Denver. Strasburg was pretty conservative back then also. Oh I like you. I talk to animals and sometimes dead people too. We'd get along fine. LOL. My family really loves me when I rescue the barn voles and then they come and hang with me in the barn and watch me work. I totally get you.
I switched to seltzer water (0 mg) due to high sodium in club soda (75 mg). But I'm thinking if you can't find club soda you probably won't find seltzer water. You could buy a sparkling water maker?
Do you know corn is a human invention. The plant that does not exist naturally in the wild. It can only survive if planted and protected by humans. Scientists believe people living in central Mexico developed corn at least 7000 years ago.
I have literally just realised from reading this, that club soda and sparkling water are THE SAME THING!! How has it taken me 44 years to learn this?!? Ash, you never fail to educate me.
wait....what?? What's Club Soda?? We have Soda Water in Australia. And sparkling water. Which is what we call Mineral Water. Is that the same?? Or is club soda more like tonic?
Personally, soda water is to water what Fosters is to beer. Not the worst, but not something you'd choose. If you didn't have a gun to your head.
But neither club soda nor soda water are mineral water...which come from natural springs, if I'm not mistaken.
....OK, I WENT DOWN A RABBIT HOLE, ASH.
According to the internet, which we all know is always 100% correct, club soda is similar to sparkling/mineral water BUT club soda is not naturally occurring. So there you have it. Half an hour of my life and many of my dwindling brain cells spent researching that. I absolutely should not be making dinner for my kids instead, shut up. They're totally too tall anyway. What's a little malnutrition amongst friends.
Haha! Thank you for burrowing down that rabbit hole so that I didn't have to. I'm sure club soda doesn't exist in the UK, or soda water for that matter. We have cream soda but that's something else again (and vile). But now you've got me thinking about the difference between spring water, mineral water, and just bog standard water...
Maybe the only way you could stay full time would be if more creative artsy fartsy, urban intellectual liberal types who make their own tofu moved out tp your area and started gentrifying, But then it wouldn't be all quiet and peaceful and beautiful and everyone waving at each other.
I understand what you mean. I grew up in a low income/crappy area as well. Sometimes we are nostalgic for things in our childhood, but you are right, too much nostalgia can keep you stuck....I live in a 'rural' area at the moment (well only 35 mins to city, but it's full of space and bush and land and wild animals) and there is definitely a lot waving on the back roads too, I love it!
I never know what to call "club soda" according to which country/ part of the US I'm in. We call it "soda water" here, but when I say that in Atlanta, in particular, people look at me like I have two heads.
What's interesting about ordering soda water at some bars in the US is that it's FREE! Coming from somewhere that nothing but problems are free, this is amazing! But it also requires me to carry small cash for tips for bartenders...
I guess the lesson is that wherever we are, we take ourselves with us. Maybe "searching for your youth" is just your "now" - a moment you have to experience to keep moving forward, gathering more life experiences, and discovering that you view everything through the lens of who you are now, not who you were then.
I kinda feel this way about substitute teaching when I get back to the US. Although I left teaching in a whirlwind of "I can't NEVER do this again" and "OMG what's happening to American education?", I wonder if going back to teaching from my 55 year old perspective will make the classroom feel different? After herding snakes out of my house, weathering the intimidation of countless immigration officers, learning how to pay tax in Indonesia, and riding a motorbike for transportation every day might just make me so bad-ass that substitute teaching feels like a walk down the beach (which is now filthy for wet season)? I won't know until I try it. And if I walk out on my first day, I'll know some things never change.
I loved this post. Yes and yes. We are multiples rolled into one-ish. Big club soda consumer, it absolutely should be offered everywhere, in all places of recreation and business. Club soda fountains?? Where can I subscribe to the newsletter... Lime LaCroix (sodium free) is currently the product to beat. My hubs prefers the cranberry LaCriox. Over ice please.
I'm a little surprised that they're more interested in soda than the cockroach corn. I almost spit out my coffee reading that part!
I'm also appalled that anyone has to pay for blood work (says that Canadian with free healthcare). We don't pay for shit up here.
This post kinda warmed my heart though. It really is cute watching you go through reintegration in America after living such a huge life everywhere else.
I didn't learn about sparkling water (of any sort - seltzer, club, mineral, etc.) until moving abroad. So, +1 to that observation. And also, I've *long* fantasized about the sort of returning-home-project you're doing. Not just going back to visit friends and family but making some lifestyle adjustments so that living in my hometown is part of my annual cycle. It's not impossible - most of my work can be done remotely. Most of my hobbies can be pursued there as easily as where I currently live. It's geographically accessible. But, it's not my partner's hometown, there isn't the same attachment, and there is so much about me that has changed that I wonder whether any sort of return is just a fantasy. There's a quote about whenever you go on a journey, you never make it all the way back home, and I've experienced that truth *so many times* because I still go back to my hometown at least once a year. Maybe what I'm getting to is: it struck me that no one has honed in on the way you ended this post: "while observing this version of America has been an interesting culture study, I can’t help but wonder if I could ever really stay. Or, if maybe the farmhouse was just a childhood souvenir, letting me remember what it feels like to come home." I hear you. And yet, in my protective-big-sister mode, here's the only way I think this could ever work for me, YMMV: if I did manage to have a charming, suited-to-me place to return to in my hometown (that, crucially, was NOT someone else's home that I'm just visiting), I would still NEED TO LEAVE regularly. But that is also true of where I live now. I guess what I'm saying is that leaving doesn't preclude returning. And having a place to return to doesn't require never leaving it. It's taken me about 20 years to understand that I can feel like *home* is a place that is deeply familiar and disorientingly unfamiliar at the same time. And also, I used to really judge people with more than one home (by which I meant McMansion or bigger). After living abroad and traveling to places that also captured my heart, I can now only understand my life in reference to several specific places. Going back to each of them feels like going home, though for wildly different reasons. It's taken me at least a decade to come to terms with this and just look for the ways to be in those places at least once a year. It's taken me *20 years* to realize that I can be there when I need it and be elsewhere when I need out. It doesn't need to be categorical: be able to return home with no ambiguity clouding the wine OR never go home. And, I don't think we have to "punish" ourselves for feeling ambivalent about what makes our hometowns a good fit and a challenging fit. You can love what you love about a place and gtfo whenever you need a break from the rest and still come back to it when you need "home" again.
Wisdom, wisdom, wisdom. I love our place in the country and sometimes I just want a different view. Going home to my state of origin (Wisconsin), used to be fraught with anxiety because I was always a little different, and over many years I’ve changed enough to know that my different makes me who I am and if what’s left of my family doesn’t like it - well, eff ‘em. Since I’ve gotten more comfortable in my skin, my younger brother and I have connected in a much more fulfilling way - that’s nice.
Corn cobs in the floor? Have you been up in your attic yet? It could be scary. If you need a hand to hold your club soda, or wine, I'm your girl...call me.
Oh I recognize the struggle! All those things that made me jump up and down of excitement and walking around with a big smile the first year when I moved to a cute countryside house (south Sweden) were the same ones that drove me crazy years later. The lack of diversity and the constant loop of sameness (is that a word?) made me move to a city and never look back. A city apartment and a tiny house in the nature 20 minutes drive from the city is my new recipy to get the best of two worlds. For now.
I love that you made the move from Costa Rica and bought that huge house in your hometown. You learn so much and discover new stuff. Maybe that is it. Discovering new places and personal capacities is the thing. No matter where. However recognition feels increasingly important and that takes time.
Ordering still water in Germany is worse than ordering horse meat in Portland. And you'll get tap water, if they don't just kick you out. I had forgotten about this because I'm a bad German that's why I moved to Canada 16 years ago - when my mom came to visit and I did not have sparkling water in my kitchen (needs to be on the counter, not in the fridge!!) she almost disowned me.
Baaahahahah! This comment made my LIFE. Also, the extra bit about needing to be room temperature - DID NOT KNOW THAT. Thank you, thank you, for confirming this awesomeness, Kerstin!!!!
🤣
Yep still a thing. My mother is German and immigrated in the 60's and I went home with her to visit family several times and when I asked for regular water you'd have thought I asked someone to give up their first born. Worse was asking for ice cubes. They finally dug up some trays for me to use while I was there. I think this is why my mother never drank water much. She too loved Club Soda lol. As to our fine rural living, it may seem like two countries and in some ways it is but I can tell you it's slowly changing. I live where it's super rural / off grid even for many (no electricity, no toilet, no water) and here you might have a few with that same mentality but more often than not you don't anymore. Sure we have the local drunk whom we avoid like the plague if she's in a car, but otherwise everyone is accepted. Everyone is pretty much supported by others in the community and we have a real sense of community. You need a hand? Someone will come and help you even if they don't like you lol. Meth heads are here too. But you don't see them much. What I love about living rural is like you said, the peace, the outdoors, the drives, the nature, the quiet (except when all the mushers huskies are howling but even that is beautiful). I can work here in peace, photograph, write, create. If I want something progressive I drive to town, but I always love coming home to the peaceful life. I grew up in the heart of Denver. I don't miss it. The longer you stay in the sticks, the more it will grow on you until you become unfit to live anywhere else.
THESE STORIES OF THE GERMAN RELATIVES, BAAHAHAHAH!!!! I've tried to feed several of my American friends club soda, even mixed with cranberry juice, and they just don't know what to do. 😂 I think La Croix has made it more fashionable, but I haven't seen a single can of that around here....lol.
And, I'm pretty sure you live in the town we all want to live in: the one from the TV show Virgin River!!!!!
I love sparkling water, but like Soleil brand best except for the German one if you can find it is my ultimate favorite. Gerolsteiner Mineral Water. I've not seen Virgin River, guess I better look it up and watch it lol
What sticks do you live in? We are south of Denver near Elizabeth (which used to be so far out people shivered at the thought of traveling there.) Our county is very...conservative...but we, free thinkers that we are, have been fine. We have neighbors who are conservative, liberal, and fence straddlers like us. I think everyone on this road decided to get along. It’s been sweet. Nobody even rolls their eyes any more when I tell them I talk to animals (and sometimes dead people).
I live outside of Fairbanks Alaska! I am very familiar with Elizabeth! I lived in Pine for 18 years, and Strasburg for 8 years before that. Grew up in Denver. Strasburg was pretty conservative back then also. Oh I like you. I talk to animals and sometimes dead people too. We'd get along fine. LOL. My family really loves me when I rescue the barn voles and then they come and hang with me in the barn and watch me work. I totally get you.
I switched to seltzer water (0 mg) due to high sodium in club soda (75 mg). But I'm thinking if you can't find club soda you probably won't find seltzer water. You could buy a sparkling water maker?
Do you know corn is a human invention. The plant that does not exist naturally in the wild. It can only survive if planted and protected by humans. Scientists believe people living in central Mexico developed corn at least 7000 years ago.
Those cobs are old AF. LOL
a) I did not know this about corn!
b) Does seltzer water taste differently?! Now I need to compare! Because I always did worry about the sodium.
It's surprising how many people don't know that about corn. It fascinates me.
It's different. Lighter is one way to describe it...I guess. I will drink pellegrino (40mg) for the minerals. It's more like club soda.
I have literally just realised from reading this, that club soda and sparkling water are THE SAME THING!! How has it taken me 44 years to learn this?!? Ash, you never fail to educate me.
I mean, I THINK IT IS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Ha!!! Hi, Sooz!
wait....what?? What's Club Soda?? We have Soda Water in Australia. And sparkling water. Which is what we call Mineral Water. Is that the same?? Or is club soda more like tonic?
Personally, soda water is to water what Fosters is to beer. Not the worst, but not something you'd choose. If you didn't have a gun to your head.
But neither club soda nor soda water are mineral water...which come from natural springs, if I'm not mistaken.
....OK, I WENT DOWN A RABBIT HOLE, ASH.
According to the internet, which we all know is always 100% correct, club soda is similar to sparkling/mineral water BUT club soda is not naturally occurring. So there you have it. Half an hour of my life and many of my dwindling brain cells spent researching that. I absolutely should not be making dinner for my kids instead, shut up. They're totally too tall anyway. What's a little malnutrition amongst friends.
Haha! Thank you for burrowing down that rabbit hole so that I didn't have to. I'm sure club soda doesn't exist in the UK, or soda water for that matter. We have cream soda but that's something else again (and vile). But now you've got me thinking about the difference between spring water, mineral water, and just bog standard water...
Maybe the only way you could stay full time would be if more creative artsy fartsy, urban intellectual liberal types who make their own tofu moved out tp your area and started gentrifying, But then it wouldn't be all quiet and peaceful and beautiful and everyone waving at each other.
TOFU? Have you met me? :)
bwahaha but you know that's the kind of annoying city folks who will move in next door!!!
"A few weeks later, he tried to save me.
I wonder if he knows I write The Middle Finger Project now."
It's a good thing I didn't have any sparkling water in my mouth because I would've bubbled hilarity all over my keyboard.
And then you move me with all the feels at the end. You are such an incredible writer, Ash.
I understand what you mean. I grew up in a low income/crappy area as well. Sometimes we are nostalgic for things in our childhood, but you are right, too much nostalgia can keep you stuck....I live in a 'rural' area at the moment (well only 35 mins to city, but it's full of space and bush and land and wild animals) and there is definitely a lot waving on the back roads too, I love it!
So much goodness here.
I never know what to call "club soda" according to which country/ part of the US I'm in. We call it "soda water" here, but when I say that in Atlanta, in particular, people look at me like I have two heads.
What's interesting about ordering soda water at some bars in the US is that it's FREE! Coming from somewhere that nothing but problems are free, this is amazing! But it also requires me to carry small cash for tips for bartenders...
I guess the lesson is that wherever we are, we take ourselves with us. Maybe "searching for your youth" is just your "now" - a moment you have to experience to keep moving forward, gathering more life experiences, and discovering that you view everything through the lens of who you are now, not who you were then.
I kinda feel this way about substitute teaching when I get back to the US. Although I left teaching in a whirlwind of "I can't NEVER do this again" and "OMG what's happening to American education?", I wonder if going back to teaching from my 55 year old perspective will make the classroom feel different? After herding snakes out of my house, weathering the intimidation of countless immigration officers, learning how to pay tax in Indonesia, and riding a motorbike for transportation every day might just make me so bad-ass that substitute teaching feels like a walk down the beach (which is now filthy for wet season)? I won't know until I try it. And if I walk out on my first day, I'll know some things never change.
I loved this post. Yes and yes. We are multiples rolled into one-ish. Big club soda consumer, it absolutely should be offered everywhere, in all places of recreation and business. Club soda fountains?? Where can I subscribe to the newsletter... Lime LaCroix (sodium free) is currently the product to beat. My hubs prefers the cranberry LaCriox. Over ice please.
All these comments though 🤣
I'm a little surprised that they're more interested in soda than the cockroach corn. I almost spit out my coffee reading that part!
I'm also appalled that anyone has to pay for blood work (says that Canadian with free healthcare). We don't pay for shit up here.
This post kinda warmed my heart though. It really is cute watching you go through reintegration in America after living such a huge life everywhere else.
I didn't learn about sparkling water (of any sort - seltzer, club, mineral, etc.) until moving abroad. So, +1 to that observation. And also, I've *long* fantasized about the sort of returning-home-project you're doing. Not just going back to visit friends and family but making some lifestyle adjustments so that living in my hometown is part of my annual cycle. It's not impossible - most of my work can be done remotely. Most of my hobbies can be pursued there as easily as where I currently live. It's geographically accessible. But, it's not my partner's hometown, there isn't the same attachment, and there is so much about me that has changed that I wonder whether any sort of return is just a fantasy. There's a quote about whenever you go on a journey, you never make it all the way back home, and I've experienced that truth *so many times* because I still go back to my hometown at least once a year. Maybe what I'm getting to is: it struck me that no one has honed in on the way you ended this post: "while observing this version of America has been an interesting culture study, I can’t help but wonder if I could ever really stay. Or, if maybe the farmhouse was just a childhood souvenir, letting me remember what it feels like to come home." I hear you. And yet, in my protective-big-sister mode, here's the only way I think this could ever work for me, YMMV: if I did manage to have a charming, suited-to-me place to return to in my hometown (that, crucially, was NOT someone else's home that I'm just visiting), I would still NEED TO LEAVE regularly. But that is also true of where I live now. I guess what I'm saying is that leaving doesn't preclude returning. And having a place to return to doesn't require never leaving it. It's taken me about 20 years to understand that I can feel like *home* is a place that is deeply familiar and disorientingly unfamiliar at the same time. And also, I used to really judge people with more than one home (by which I meant McMansion or bigger). After living abroad and traveling to places that also captured my heart, I can now only understand my life in reference to several specific places. Going back to each of them feels like going home, though for wildly different reasons. It's taken me at least a decade to come to terms with this and just look for the ways to be in those places at least once a year. It's taken me *20 years* to realize that I can be there when I need it and be elsewhere when I need out. It doesn't need to be categorical: be able to return home with no ambiguity clouding the wine OR never go home. And, I don't think we have to "punish" ourselves for feeling ambivalent about what makes our hometowns a good fit and a challenging fit. You can love what you love about a place and gtfo whenever you need a break from the rest and still come back to it when you need "home" again.
Wisdom, wisdom, wisdom. I love our place in the country and sometimes I just want a different view. Going home to my state of origin (Wisconsin), used to be fraught with anxiety because I was always a little different, and over many years I’ve changed enough to know that my different makes me who I am and if what’s left of my family doesn’t like it - well, eff ‘em. Since I’ve gotten more comfortable in my skin, my younger brother and I have connected in a much more fulfilling way - that’s nice.
Corn cobs in the floor? Have you been up in your attic yet? It could be scary. If you need a hand to hold your club soda, or wine, I'm your girl...call me.
Oh I recognize the struggle! All those things that made me jump up and down of excitement and walking around with a big smile the first year when I moved to a cute countryside house (south Sweden) were the same ones that drove me crazy years later. The lack of diversity and the constant loop of sameness (is that a word?) made me move to a city and never look back. A city apartment and a tiny house in the nature 20 minutes drive from the city is my new recipy to get the best of two worlds. For now.
I love that you made the move from Costa Rica and bought that huge house in your hometown. You learn so much and discover new stuff. Maybe that is it. Discovering new places and personal capacities is the thing. No matter where. However recognition feels increasingly important and that takes time.