What Germans mean when they say “Oh my English isn’t very
good”: “Well I might have a bit of an accent, but otherwise my English is damn
near perfect”.
What I mean when I say “Oh my German isn’t very good”: “No,
guys, really, it’s not good. Like, I understand about half of what you are
saying…and you’re still trying because you think I actually understand…okay…I’m
just gonna nod. Nodding seems good. Yes, yes, I totally know what’s going on…wait,
what?”
I have been in Hamburg for over a week now, not including the
four days that I was in Cologne for orientation (which was an experience which can
best be summed up in a message that I sent to my sister, which went something
like “SWEET BABY JESUS GET ME OUT OF HERE”), and I can say that while my German
is adequate for touristy things such as “How much does this cost?”, “Thank you”,
“Excuse me”, and ordering food (which is the only thing that matters really),
for actually living in Hamburg it is not so good. When taking two years of
college level German, you tend not to concern yourself with the kind of
vocabulary that could enable you to open a bank account, get a residency
permit, and convey to your fellow teachers that you are not, in fact, an actual
idiot. Instead, you memorize colors, kinds of clothing, food (which I’m not mad
about because, as I said, it’s really the only thing that matters), and the
past tense (WHY WOULD I NEED TO KNOW HOW TO SAY THINGS IN THE PAST IF I CAN’T
EVEN REMEMBER HOW TO SAY THEM IN THE PRESENT), none of which proves to be
helpful when you are trying to tell someone that you have an appointment at
12:30 and they are looking at you like you have satanic horns and a pitchfork.
Having said that, Germans are the nicest. Seriously, they
are so polite, and blonde, and smiley, and every other phrase out of their
mouths is “Danke schon” and “Tschuss” and “Hallo!!” And, as my roommate told me
the first night that I was in Hamburg, “Germans like to drink always”, meaning
that they are my kind of people.
However…they don’t
jaywalk. Someone warned me about this beforehand, and I brushed it off,
thinking, oh sure, a whole city of people who obey traffic laws, yeah right.
Yeah. Right.
And then I got to a crosswalk, and observed the other
pedestrians…who waited, oh so patiently while there were absolutely no cars
coming, for what felt like an eternity, for the crosswalk light to turn green. This
has proven to be a frustrating daily struggle for me, as I went from living in
the middle of nowhere, where I could probably take a nap in the middle of the
street if I really wanted to, to living in Boston, where four years of city
living taught me to become freakishly good at predicting traffic lights and dodging
oncoming vehicles (and I only once almost
got hit by a bus). So now I stand on the sidewalk, shifting impatiently from
foot to foot and glancing around to check for cops and figure out if I can just
make a run for it.
Aside from reluctantly becoming a law abiding pedestrian for
perhaps the first time in my life, I have been enjoying myself immensely thus
far. I have been scoping out every (vegan) restaurant and grocery store in my
area (if you think that I’m joking I am not. I have hit up no less than five
different grocery stores in the past week. Food is my life guys), taking tons
of pictures (and I just bought a 32 GB media card today, so now I should be set
for the rest of the year/my life), and, of course, window shopping. This coming
week I will be at my school a little bit more, and I am sure I will have plenty
of stories involving life in the classroom after that. In the meantime, I miss
you guys, and feel free to message me if you want more stories.
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