Fortunately for me, Berlin is full of friends of friends and ex-pats just looking for someone to speak English with. So far, all have turned out to be absolutely awesome people, who I am so glad to now call my friends. It also helps to know some new “locals” as they can recommend the coolest places.
Berlin is like Williamsburg, Brooklyn exploded into a patchwork of architecture, art, pretension,and beer. So....I love it. The only thing I DON’T love is the smoking. It makes my eyes burn when you turn a bar into a hot box! Apparently, it’s actually against the Law, but eventually the bartenders get annoyed and start smoking, and that’s the symbol that it’s now ok to just ignore the law....and the possibility of cancer.
I have started my studies at the Goethe Institute. Being winter, not many students have sighed up, so I ended up in a class by myself. At first, it brought back grade school memories of being in the slow reading group and feeling like an outcast. However, now I get one on one training with a native speaker, ALL in German and focusing on the topics I need to learn best: Auditions, Character, Contract negotiations etc. On top of that, I got a bit of a refund! Best of all possible worlds!
Though, I think I've hit a wall. Every morning I wake up, think in English, and then I remember “Oh crap. I have to speak a foreign language. I’d better switch gears...” at which point my brain begins to think in Italian. Not helpful! Not only that, but it takes me a few sentences to realize it’s not German! It’s like my brain is a manual car with a sticky clutch and just can’t get my brain into the German gear! Or maybe my car just has 2 gears” 1st: English 2nd: Other.
My host is REALLY nice, all of my hosts have been. But, I still find myself hiding--literally hiding--in my room and thinking: "Oh God, I have to speak German. What could I possibly be asked? How can I respond? What should I say? How should I say it?” It's all fun and games at the bar (and way easier after a few beers). Any other situation, not so much. And lord help me if a stranger walks up to me on the street with a question out of context! Wie bitte?
And don’t get me started on trying to read in German....my eye sees those supper long compound words and literally throws in the white flag. “
For example, I met a friend at a bar with no name, in the Hipsterest neighborhood in the Hipsterest city in the world. Granted, it was a Thursday night, but I wasn’t out too late (for a New Yorker). I headed back to the U-bahn station a little before midnight. I get to the U-7 and lucky me, there’s the train in the station! I hope on, and some German in a BVG uniform says something like “Sorry, this train is out of service, you have to take the U7 Bus instead.” I look at him terrified and ask “And where is this Bus?” Thinking all the while “great, now I’m in a weird city, in the weirdest part of town at midnight on a Thursday night, and you want me to find a bus back across town?!” The man just pointed at a sign. Curses! I have no idea what that means!!!
I run upstairs to the square and look around- Bus! Dead ahead! I jay-walk/run to the bus and ask if this is the bus to Nollendorfplatz. Nein. I’m on the wrong side of the street, my bus is across the square. And there it is, waiting there. I dash across the square thinking “No way will I be standing out here waiting for the next one!” I make the bus and even find a seat, despite the burning glares from the locals at having jay walked, twice.
I’m sorry, It’s midnight, I want to get to bed and I’ll be dammed if I miss a bus because I was waiting for the “Walk” sign. But now that I’m on this Bus, driving along the U7 line, I start to get nervous. What about my next transfer to the U2? Is that running too? Or do I have to wait for ANOTHER bss? So I ask the person next to me (by the way, I’m doing this all in German, I promise) and he says, “Oh something something U7 but the U2 is running.”
What? What’s going on?! Why would one subway line run, but not the other? Just as I’m starting to sweat a little, the man sitting next to me wipes out a vile of a roll-on perfume oil AND PERFUMES MY HAND!! WHAT!!! Not only that, it is the nastiest smelling perfume I had ever smelt. It burned my eyes and my nostrils and smelled mostly of grain alcohol and the concentrated juices of a million rotted lilies. Who does that! If we had been in the US, I guarantee you I would have given him a verbal thrashing to make his ears bleed, from years of experience living in New York City, and growing up in Philadelphia.
But, being that I was trying to speak in German, I just rubbed it of and said “Entschuldigen, das ist nicht so meins/ Excuse me, that’s not really to my taste.” Who am I! Many of you know me, when have I ever, EVER been passive after being accosted by a stranger?! Just yesterday I cursed off a begging gypsy because she made the mistake of approaching me in Italian. So....somehow, in German I am submissive? I’m an American God Damn it! I want, what I want, when I want it, and if you make me wait for it, I'll sue!
Anyway, I made it home...eventually. It only took an HOUR AND A HALF! On the walk home from the subway, I felt like Pepe le Pew from the old Looney Tunes cartoons, where everything just dies as he walks by. The perfume stunk up my room too. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed but the smell wouldn’t go away. It was so bad. I even had the thought “Mmmm....this sort of burns like a Jellyfish sting....and I remember seeing on an episode of Friends that you’re supposed to pee on a Jellyfish sting...maybe if I pee on my hand, the smell will go away....I mean....urine is sterile...could it possibly make it any worse?” I can thankfully report it did NOT come to that and eventually the smell faded. I can report that I slept with one glove on to try and separate the stench from my nose. Ugh!
So to sum up: On an ordinary Thursday, I went to a bar with no name with 2 Fulbright scholars speaking in German/ English, ordering beers from the bartender in Italian, had an adventure on the subway and was Skunk bombed and slept with a glove on after legitimately contemplating peeing on my own hand. Yep. I’m keepin’ it classy!
Oh, Donata - I think this was the most entertaining update yet! Thanks for sharing your experience.....I laughed through the whole story. Glad you made it home safely!
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