I know this may be a surprise, but I do actually work between all of my travels. Trying to live a jet-setter lifestyle without the millions or a rich husband means I have to earn it. I pretty much spent my time from October through March in a hotel in Basel, a town about an hour train ride outside of Zürich, working long hours, which not only cut into my social life, but also my German classes. And while I have now since mastered the just “smile and nod” approach and how to endure a long lunch or dinner with co-workers or social events in silence (I think sometimes people just make the assumption that you are that weird socially awkward girl), it is extremely frustrating to not be able to understand or communicate.
As such, in May, I took 2 weeks off of work to attend an intensive German language course in Münich, Germany. I was put in a class with 2 other students, a guy from Sweden and another from Poland, whose ADD was even worse than mine, and we were immediately pegged as the “trouble-makers” in class, cracking jokes and fighting all the time. Considering the fact that my German is about at the level of a five-year old, I found it amusing how you actually start to act like it (but we are all kids at heart anyway).
Given the fact that the students were from all over the world and we were there to learn German, our common language was therefore German. We spent the whole day together, and most of our meals. Looking back I have to laugh, as the image of all of us hanging out at restaurants and the Biergartens was probably similar to that of a bunch of retarded kids shouting a strange special language to each other complete with flailing hand gestures, guttural noises, and a mad shaking of the head. But hey, we seemed to make it work. And I have lived through enough embarrassing and humbling moments living in foreign countries, which I prefer to blame on my not understanding the language or customs as opposed to my lack of common sense, to not really mind being “special” all that much.
As such, in May, I took 2 weeks off of work to attend an intensive German language course in Münich, Germany. I was put in a class with 2 other students, a guy from Sweden and another from Poland, whose ADD was even worse than mine, and we were immediately pegged as the “trouble-makers” in class, cracking jokes and fighting all the time. Considering the fact that my German is about at the level of a five-year old, I found it amusing how you actually start to act like it (but we are all kids at heart anyway).
Given the fact that the students were from all over the world and we were there to learn German, our common language was therefore German. We spent the whole day together, and most of our meals. Looking back I have to laugh, as the image of all of us hanging out at restaurants and the Biergartens was probably similar to that of a bunch of retarded kids shouting a strange special language to each other complete with flailing hand gestures, guttural noises, and a mad shaking of the head. But hey, we seemed to make it work. And I have lived through enough embarrassing and humbling moments living in foreign countries, which I prefer to blame on my not understanding the language or customs as opposed to my lack of common sense, to not really mind being “special” all that much.
