This winter I was in Germany for a few hours. I bought a coat, a notebook, a Birthday card, a bit of hand cream and a pillow.
It is an awesome effing pillow.
It mostly wasn't hard, especially considering that my German vocabulary was limited to:
Yes, no, heaven, mother, father, piano, thank you, good morning, you have me, love is for everyone, come in my boat, I love you, it's wonderful, Germany, leather trousers.
Let me tell you about when I bought my pillow. I was in this little shop place (well, it wasn't that little) and there were two whole display cases dedicated to Shaun the Sheep.
I got all excited, because I love Shaun the Sheep and you can't really buy any merchandise in Mexico. So I was hovering there to see what could buy, and this is the awesome part... two german kids walked by, saw the display, and one of them started singing the theme song in German. I was all, cooooool!
So I eventually picked a Shaun the Sheep pillow (except since this was in Germany and all, it says "Shaun das Schaf", and now I can add schaf to my vocabulary) and went to the checkout. The dude there said:
German German German German German German German German German German German German euros German.
And held out his hand.
The whole time he was talking I was thinking Awesome, an actual person from Germany is speaking to me!! In German!! And while I may never know what it is exactly that he said to me, what I do know is that he did not say: mother, leather trousers, nor to come in his boat. Neither did he tell me that he loved me, but that was to be expected (and yet still crushingly disappointing).
So I handed over my money, and he gave me my receipt and change, and I employed my knowledge of the language to its full extent:
Danke!
And he raised his eyebrows at me and made a surprised noise, which means that during his previous speech he could totally tell from my face that I didn't understand squat.
Thank you, Rammstein.
This and something else (a dude who told me that if I have a funky last name, I should speak German) got me thinking... I ought to learn the language. It sounds awesome. So, with the help of my mother** I have now learned to say "Would you like a cigarette?"
**My mom doesn't speak much German, but she has a butt-kickingly awesome pronunciation. Except for her R's, which she's been told she shouldn't roll because only German farmers from some hick town roll their R's. But... well, even speaking like a German farmer hick is cool, as far as I'm concerned. Plus, if I'm descended from farmer hicks, well, that's nothing to be ashamed of, now is it? LONG LIVE HICKS!! Although I'm not rolling my R's, which makes me a hypocrite after all I've said. But whatever. Deep down I'll know I'm a hick at heart.
