High-level whining

This weekend Torsten and I looked into buying tickets to Germany in April so that we can be there for his father's 60th birthday party. You know what sucks? April birthdays. International plane tickets cost so much during prime spring break season, and we can't get around it by traveling in the off-season when there's a birthday involved.

Anyway, there's going to be a big party with all of Torsten's extended family in attendance, so it will be the first (and possibly only--since they are all unlikely to make the trip over here for our wedding) time that I'll get to meet them all. Which means that I should probably, um, start back up with those German lessons that I've been neglecting. I can just see Torsten's scowl as he reads this, since he's been bugging me about practicing German for months. (Hi, sweetie!)

The thing is--and I know this is going to sound spoiled and ungrateful--that it's kind of frustrating to have to spend so much time and money going to Germany.

Okay, I'll just give you a minute to peel your eyes out of the back of your head from where they rolled when you saw me complaining about how much my life sucks, because, geez, I have to travel to Europe all the time and oh, WOE IS ME.

Seriously, though. I totally recognize that it's hard for Torsten's parents (though not terribly hard for him) to be so far away. They feel alienated and he's not very good at keeping in touch on a regular basis. And my parents live much closer, so it's much easier for us to just drive down for the weekend to see them. And when we do see them, it's less stressful precisely because we get to see them more often so there isn't as much need there, or a feeling like we have to cram as much visiting as possible into the time that we're together.

But I don't get that much time off at work. Actually, I get a generous four weeks. But when we go to Germany, it's usually a full five or six vacation days, just for that trip. Add in random personal days plus time off at the holidays, and suddenly that's eaten up most of my vacation time for the year. Plus, we went to Germany for 10 days only a couple months after I'd started my new job, so I am basically playing catch-up with my vacation days--and this trip in April is going to set me back to zero. Which means no more vacations from April to November, when we go on our honeymoon.

(I know. I KNOW. The poor dear has to save up all her vacation days at work so she can go on her honeymoon with the love of her life! This post is a real tearjerker.)

But the thing is that while these visits to Germany are necessary, and in many ways enjoyable--they're not really vacations. They aren't time to relax. The last one, at least, was incredibly stressful, and not just because of the unfortunate events that occurred while we were there. Part of it is that I don't speak the language, and part of it is that his family is just very different from mine and so I don't feel relaxed there, and part of it is that his mother is just a very nervous person and visiting her is about meeting her needs more than our own, so the trip isn't a break for us.

And also, plane tickets to Europe are expensive--this trip is going to cost us over $1,000 in plane tickets alone. And yeah, we're lucky that we have an affordable apartment and good jobs and the discretionary income to pay that money, but we aren't exactly rich and there are a lot of things we need to be saving for, like retirement and a down payment and all the rest. And because Germany is so far away, the trips are always long, because otherwise we'd spend more time traveling than we would actually at our destination.

And it makes me a little resentful to be spending so much, both in money and vacation days, to travel so far when we would both much prefer to be somewhere much closer to home and less expensive, just spending time together.

Lest I sound too spoiled, let's focus on the silver lining for a bit: I have an amazing fiancé to whom I can talk about anything, including this. It's not like this post will come as a shock to him, because he already knows that I struggle with these issues. And he's incredibly supportive and understanding about it. And for that, I am extremely lucky.