Remembering Florida I

I used to live in southern Florida (south even of Miami – yes, there’s more than just swamp and beach down there), something which surprises every single person I tell. Nothing about me screams ex-American.

But if you pay attention there are whispers: my ‘r’s are rounded and soft, which may also be put down to the Scottish heritage but probably stem largely from the soft US dialect; I "misspell" words such as colour/color on a regular basis; and last year I infuriated my translation teacher by translating a German word as ‘obligated’, rather than ‘obliged’. There’s a difference apparently – who knew?

Honestly, though, that’s pretty much it apart from a couple of welcome marks on my personality and the odd hazy childhood memory. Thank god my grandma captured that last bit on film when she visited us back in the first few months, or else I might think it was all just a strange and lucid dream…

  
Meet me (dancing? if you can call it that…) and my younger brother, Niall (pirate hat). If he finds this, he’ll hate me (SORRY!) but I don’t care. Don’t we look like obnoxious rascals? We almost certainly were.

Not all the time though. We could be utterly delightful when satiated with food, though Niall is already showing an irritating habit he has of just not being interested in food. People like that just freak me out. Niall, I think you’re broken. I also think I spy a pot of Nutella at the right… pure bliss.

  
As Germans from the most traditional part of Germany, we were utterly baffled by American Christmas. Plastic trees? No snow? You can see that Niall and I just don’t really get it in the photos above.

  
There’s another thing which a 6-year-old and a 4-year-old didn’t “get”, but thankfully my grandma did: the unique beauty of southern urban Florida.

  
My Mum appreciated it too!

Niall and I were far more interested in hunting for alligators in the everglades.

And here’s the lady herself, the one behind the camera! My beloved grandmother who just turned 92. Here she is, standing on our roof-terrace.

Next time, you can look forward to a Yellow School Bus, and playground acrobatics! If you subscribe you’ll get notified immediately – and you know you don’t want to miss out on hearing all about my odd little life.

Right?

Find part two here.