How Philip Birgenheir was on top of the world after his time in Arizona
Philip Birgenheir is a 36-year-old German teacher. He is the only German teacher in the Columbia Public Schools district.
Out of the many places he has lived, Birgenheir has only revisited two of them in his years as an adult. The two places were Arizona and Missouri.
After living in Austria he “went back to Arizona, so I lived in Arizona two different times. It was a lot different. In some ways, it was nice because people all speak English. And so it made some aspects of my life easier to just speak my first language.”
While living in Tempe, Arizona, there were many things that he enjoyed doing.
“I really liked swimming because you can do that most of the year, and I also like going to restaurants because I think they have some really great restaurants and a huge variety. I went to a ramen place in Tempe a lot. Tampopo ramen,” Birgenheir said.
Other than finding an excellent variety of restaurants to choose from, there were also many places to go. Such as multiple malls, the Arizona Desert Botanical Garden and more.
One place he visited in 2014 was a bar called ‘Handlebar’ that was close to the state college, Arizona State University. Birgenheir met with a coworker at the bar, and ultimately he met his match, Samantha. The two went on a date a week later and have been together since then.
In 2018, Birgenheir and Samantha, the two engaged to be married, adopted a dog together at the Chandler Mall and named her Ruby.
After a couple of years, in 2020, Birgenheir and his wife moved to Missouri with their dog Ruby. Birgenheir started to teach German, and he enjoyed it better than math, which he had taught in Arizona.
“I’ve been a teacher my whole career and I was always teaching math and science, but I never had a chance to teach German so when I got the chance, I just took it.”