We're here!

Anonymous I must admit that, while I was certainly excited at the prospect of coming to Germany and getting a chance to learn more about the culture and refine my German, I was also quite terrified. The two emotions were battling it out and leaving me feeling somewhat neutral in the days leading up to departure, but as I got into the car on the morning of the 29th, it suddenly hit me that in just a few hours I would be in a foreign country, depending on my German. And ok, yes, I could speak English if the situation required it, but that would sort of defeat the whole purpose of travelling to Berlin. Suddenly the idea of using my German outside of the classroom, with people who actually use it daily as their native language, speaking at a normal rate rather than the slow, measured pace of a teacher in a classroom, was intimidating. As I flew from Chicago to Frankfurt, my main focus was on the potential awkwardness, the embarrassment of getting to Germany and suddenly discovering that all my language knowledge had deserted me, or my pronunciation was atrocious, or I couldn't remember to use "Sie", the formal "you", instead of "du".

Halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, however, it was much too late to change my mind even if I'd wanted to - I was committed, and I would just have to suck it up and speak German.

Fortunately, I got eased into it - the plane we were meant to take from Frankfurt to Berlin had some technical issues and they had to move all our luggage over to a different plane and get that one ready for departure. Suddenly the flight scheduled to leave around 7:30 am was scheduled to leave at 8:20 (which ultimately became 8:50 by the time we left the ground). Oddly enough, the Frankfurt airport was devoid of clocks. There was no time stamp at the bottom of the TV we were watching muted news on, no time stamp on the computers which displayed the increasingly delayed departure time, and of course our own phones were so flummoxed by the whole "we are in Europe" thing that they had stopped working and were now turned off in our pockets. For a country famous for its punctuality and organization, Germany was not doing a very good job of telling us the time. Tommy and I discussed asking someone for the time, and I played the words I would say in my head over and over, hoping they were suitably polite and grammatical. I half-hoped the man sitting beside us would hear our muttering and take pity on us and offer up the time unprompted. Before either of us could really work up the nerve, the TV displayed a brief flash of the time before returning to its clockless broadcasting.

The next time we stood discussing grammar and German phrasing - this time on the bus from the terminal to the plane that we would take to Berlin - someone did take pity on us and offer help. From his accent, he was not German but rather American, but the interaction with a helpful other human being, willing to help us silly German students with our attempts to navigate this country bolstered my confidence. Perhaps it would not be the end of the world if I made a mistake, after all?

Finally, on the flight to Berlin, I had no choice but to speak with a German. I couldn't very well coldly ignore the man who came down the aisle pushing the drink cart, after all. Now I was faced with a dilemma - did I try to postpone my German usage and order in English, or did I be brave and order in German? Since it wasn't exactly an impromptu inauguration speech - just a few words, really - I decided to speak German. After debating whether to order what I could see on top and thus be completely sure of the name, or order what I actually wanted, I ordered myself a drink - coffee with milk and two sugars. My pronunciation was probably not perfect, but nor was it so atrocious that he threw the beverage in my face rather than serving it up with a smile.

Tommy and I arrived in Berlin to snow and the announcement that it was -14 C (about 7 F). We deplaned, walked the few feet to baggage claim, and then stood there for what felt like forever (but was probably only about thirty minutes) as two unwanted bags made the lonely circuit over and over before the groundcrew finally decided to send up the rest of the luggage. Tommy and I grabbed our bags and dashed for where we were supposed to meet the rest of the group - they were meant to have landed about ten minutes before I finally got my bag. Fortunately (or unfortunately, if you consider the reason) they were still there. In fact, they remained there for quite a while - after waiting nearly two hours, they went to lost and found, where I hear they were told that they would be getting their bags in 5-7 (or more) days.

As I type this, I am sitting in my bedroom in the apartment where I will be living for the next four weeks, so tired I can feel my glasses on my face and see the rims in the corner of my vision despite seeing those same glasses on the table in front of me but trying to stay up long enough to adjust to the new time zone, listening to fireworks periodically going off right outside my window and the sound of my host and her friend speaking German in the kitchen. The trip hasn't been without its delays and frustrations, and I'm sure majority of the group who lost their bags would agree with that statement more enthusiastically than I, but it has dissolved my fear. I'm still nervous, of course, but with some German conversation under my belt, the excitement has finally won the battle.