My German wasn't very good. In fact, it was fairly nonexistent. Aside from being able to ask for a beer, a coke or some chocolate, I was inept at communicating in the language spoken by the vast majority of people at Eringerfeld.
Unlike most of the other American students on the trip, I was not in German class back in the United States. I had signed up for a class called Foreign Language Sample Course. In the class, over the course of sixteen weeks, I experienced four different languages: Spanish, French, German and Latin. The purpose of the class was to learn a little of the language and the culture and decide, from there, if you wanted to learn more. Of the four languages, I liked Latin the most. While taking the German portion of the course I learned about the upcoming opportunity to be a foreign exchange student in Germany during the month of August.
Despite the fact that I didn't speak German, I never felt concerned about my ability to communicate. I had American friends that could translate and many of the German students knew some English. I attempted to say things the best that I could and, more than likely, completely butchered the language. In fact, I'm sure I butchered the language because on more then one occasion, my words were met with confused looks and furrowed brows. Little did I know, at the time, that I would later wish I had made more of an effort to learn to speak German.
Monday morning arrived and, after breakfast, I walked over to the school with some friends. Sylvia was another American student on the trip who had grown up in a bilingual home and was fluent in German. Sylvia was the go-to girl if anyone, American or German, needed translations. Mid-morning, Sylvia came up to me to let me know I had an admirer, Mario, the DJ from the school disco. No question about it, I liked Mario. When he smiled the room lit up. When he glanced at me at the disco I felt as if I was the only one there. I'd seen him in class and had really noticed him at the disco but left it at that. I barely spoke any German and had no idea if he spoke any English. It was difficult enough to communicate with American boys. What would I do if I didn't even know enough German to tell Mario I liked him? In the end, it wouldn't matter. I expected nothing to come of it.
Mario had a message for me and had asked Sylvia to deliver it for him. The message was simple; he had asked that I smile back at him, in class, if I liked him. A lump formed in my throat and butterflies flew around in my stomach. "Okay" was all I could utter in reply.
I entered English class and headed over to my seat in the third row at the last desk. Mario sat to my right, in the first row, the third seat. I sat in my seat, put my book on the desk and stared straight ahead....too scared and too nervous to do anything else. I cannot remember what we discussed in class that day or if I even participated. The only thing I heard was the sound of my heart beating loudly in my own ears. Each second on the clock ticked by ever so slowly as if time was screeching to an agonizing halt. I could see Mario out of the corner of my eye but didn't dare to look in his direction. I didn't want to be too obvious and what if he changed his mind and didn't smile at me first? I would look like a total idiot. My palms were sweaty and everything began to move in slow motion, the way it does in the movies. English class was half over....what was going on? Maybe he'd decided he didn't like me after all. Maybe Sylvia didn't really understand German and had delivered the wrong message. Maybe Mario liked someone else and Sylvia had made a mistake.
Eight million frantic and crazy thoughts swirled around in my head when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mario turn to look in my direction. Very slowly, I turned my head to the right just enough to see if he was smiling at me. As I did, a smile spread across his face. The eight million frantic and crazy thoughts that had occupied my mind a few seconds earlier suddenly disappeared. Sylvia hadn't gotten the message wrong, after all. She truly did understand German and I wasn't an idiot. Mario's eyes lit up and I turned to meet his gaze. And then I smiled back because I did, indeed, like him very much.
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