Hello people and a Happy New Year to you. I’m currently in Munich awaiting a connecting flight to Berlin, where I will spend some time exploring and envisioning my permanent move to the German Hauptstadt in summer after I finish university. I’ll be making short blog entries throughout my five days here. Come on this journey with me!
Thursday 5th January, 11:20, The Sky
We’re lifted above the clouds. A green and brown sludgy view quickly becomes cleansed by clouds like sea foam washing over the rock. I listen to ‘Summer in Berlin’ by Alphaville sentimentally. It’s so much brighter up here. The sun strikes me through the window and I try to catch my good side as the nice German man besides me is looking my way. I stare longingly through the glass, acting like the main character of a film.
The trolley is coming through and I swiftly prepare my German after a flick through of the snack magazine. Right, I think to myself, I want to speak a lot of German on this trip. It starts here. It starts now. Be brave…..Ok I want a tea and I’ll have that nut bar. Right what the hell is the pronoun for the nut bar, I have no idea. Shall I just put eins (one) before it or shall I use a pronoun I’m uncertain about. I can’t remember. There’s a 33% chance of success… Shit the cart is here.
I raise a tentative finger as the German hostess shoots daggers at me from sparkling blue eyes. She’s quick and efficient but I’m slow and nervous.
‘Einss Schwarztee und….Nussriegel? (One Black tea and….Nut bar?)’
I don’t really know if it’s landed well and Ludwig next to me, fluent in English no doubt, probably finds it hilarious. He also probably doesn’t care that I at least tried. I mean, he’s just come from Birmingham where he’s probably had enough of conversing with my Midlands kind.
The flight attendant chatters to her colleague in a high pitched voice with dynamic mouse-like hand movements. She presents the card machine. I must have succeeded?
She asks if I want milk or sugar, but presumptuously, I assumed she was asking if I wanted the receipt and so I shook my head. Then it hit me what she had asked. But by this time, I’d already failed and she had resorted to English. I’d been found out.
I hear the voices of German children with their German speaking capabilities and get jealous. Earphones back in to enjoy my tea.
P.S: I forgot to ask for sugar but I think I’ll just go with out.
The Waxing Lyrical 