Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache

I have done it again. I'm in yet another country living - and this time working. And once again I threw myself into the experience well in advance of having the necessary language skills.

This time, I am in Munich....well München.

My adventure started with the warmest of welcomes to Deutschland. I came in February during a massive European cold snap. It was below 0 and snowing for 13 of my first 15 days here. This made sightseeing laughable to say the least; walking alone presented a challenge. I have braved many a blizzard in New York City, but given the suitcase restrictions my snow boots didnt quite make the list of necessary items for my first months here. In fact, I spent the first month in my much more stylish boots with slick leather soles which predictably provided me with little to no traction. On a typical day I spent only 25% of my time certain I wasn't on the brink of falling and that was only because I wasn't paying attention. If you ignore the time I used an old man's walker to prevent me from completely falling to the ground - I made it through unscathed.

I am adjusting to life in Germany quite nicely. As long as I remember to get to the grocery store before it closes or one can find themselves in a similar situation of not having food for a week if the holiday schedule works against you (ie Easter weekend). Public transporation is more than sufficient to get me where I need to go and the only thing it lacks is the precision of the Swiss. Now that makes me sound like I am complaining. How dare an American complain when I come from a land where Amtrak is celebrated if it arrives within 3 hours of its scheduled time. The problem comes back to one thing, the only real problem I am having thus far....if my train is late I have no idea what the sign says. Normally I find out later that it is telling me to go to the next station or to wait for an undefined amount of time, but I normally just stand there bewildered that such a concept can be explained in just two words.....two quite long words usually. And that is the common denominator....the language is the root of any problem I may have. I am slowly chipping away at this, but as soon as I feel like I have a good grasp, I find that there are a few exceptions and traditionally more exceptions than there are rules. I should have been weary when I saw the extensive chart on my German teachers wall which she explained were new rules and words that were meant for making German....easier.

Another warning of the uphill battle was actually penned in the 1800's when Mark Twain wrote about his annoyance with learning German. In the back of his book 'A Tramp Abroad' he has an essay that truly highlights the frustrations I feel every time I try to make strides with learning. Now, certainly I will get there and my teachers are pleased with my progress, but this is not without hair raising frustration at the process. I won't pretend to illustrate this better than Mr. Twain so feel free to read up on it yourself although its best read over a beer.

I want to speak German today and I lack the patience to not get frustrated with the inevitable process, so until I can speak a bit better I put my headphones on for my walk through the city or on my way to work. This way I don't embarrass myself while bastardizing the language of my new home. Oh if only it was that easy. Because I am new in town and I am fascinated with the scenery out the train windows or the sites around town so I commonly walk with my head up a bit higher than the typical local which makes me easy prey for those that are new in town or visiting. Eye contact leads to a question from a tourist or even more commonly an elderly woman. I have gotten far enough that I can understand the first few words which means I get the general idea of what they are asking. This is where the problem starts. I enter into a congratulatory state, mentally applauding myself for such progress and how far I have come. Sometimes I even refer back to the class in which I learned these words. Its only then that I realize I didn't get the rest of the message and I'm standing there smiling at my accomplishment as the lost tourist or grandmother looks at me puzzled. I then try to mumble something uncertain if its a 'u' or a 'ü' sound that just came out and its all down hill from there. My American accent seeps through and I normally walk off before I get a nod of disappointment.

Note to self: look at the ground until I am fluent.

L’Auberge espagnole

It was one of the movies I watched in order to prepare for my life here in Barcelona – L’Auberge espagnole. Similar to the movie, I was resigned to the fact that I was headed back to the days of cramped apartments with a cultural assortment of roommates. If my search for a flat was any indication of what was ahead, I was going to be in trouble.

In proper last-minute-student-form, I grabbed the last two people looking for roommates and began the search. It would be my first time living with men – two of them yet, before I knew it, two became four. Me and FOUR men….in one apartment? I had visions of dirty dishes piled ceiling high, dirty clothes strewn across the house and queues for the bathroom. It was developing into a nightmare.

So four of us settled into a popular US coffee chain to scour the internet and find a flat for five. A week transpired in scorching temperatures and excessive humidity levels and still we had found no apartment. Eventually I put my foot down and shaved the number of men down to 3. And then we walked. We walked half of Barcelona in the August heat wave to find some of the city’s most unattractive flats - my fears from L’Auberge epsagnole were coming into focus.

In a twist of fate, the outlook for the next 15 months changed quite drastically. After stumbling past a curious doorman clad in his royal blue top, we soon found ourselves peering into a flat originally on the market for sale. It was empty and a thin layer of dust covered the black and white marble floors. The ceilings were raised higher than a typical flat and they were all decorated with ornate molding adding a bit of character and charm. The four largest rooms were flanked with frosted glass French doors and another set of doors led to a balcony shaded by a solitary tree. The lobby was home to an old-fashion elevator that may or may not work at any given time. It was adorned with a red carpet that led the way to the front door where Andreas – the doorman and town gossip – stands daily, perched at the ready for the next big thing to walk by.

We would have to furnish the flat ourselves, but with only that caveat, we were sold on our new home. I was convinced by now that my time was going to play out less like the Erasmus experience and more like the lives in L’Elegance Du Herisson.

Our little Balmes flat has taken on a life of its own. I fear that Andreas the doorman isn’t an intellectual in hiding, but we do stumble through whispered conversations as our paths cross in the mornings. The boys and I survived a few multi-hour trips to Ikea where I felt like a mother to three kids with varied attention spans. I herded them through the Ikea maze and we all tried to make sense of the Swedish product names with Catalan descriptions. We couldn’t decide what to do with the four extra rooms so one is home to a Television that has never been turned on, our laundry hangs to dry in another and guests from near and far crash in a third that is equipped with a guest bed and drawers.

Our landlady initially acted as if she wanted to be a bit of a grandmother figure. She brought us pots and pans and before we knew it she showed up with massive furniture that she clearly had no use for in her own flat - as time went on we noticed we were getting a significant amount of second hand dilapidated furniture. We still see her from time to time if the pilot light goes out and we can no longer stand to take ice cold showers or when she stops by to see her son the Veterinarian that has office space on the ground level. The flat has its oddities – like the world’s smallest kitchen in a 200 m² flat and so what if my window vibrates - ok shakes - when the trash is emptied at 1130pm and again at 230am.

The flat has seen its fair share of guests and probably has been the catalyst to more rumors than we deserve. We have even hosted MBA orphans for weeks at a time over the summer. We can speak a combination of Spanish, English and German, yet we often have conversations for five minutes using just one word or communicate silently through our own signature dance. And let's be honest, it’s not uncommon to cross paths at 7am when someone is coming home and another is going out.....

But our lease ends at the end of the month and we’ll move on to our new adventures which are still left largely undefined.

I’ll miss the regal red carpet that greets me every day. My next flat probably won’t have the same frustrating ability to trap you in the lobby, but out of your flat – total fire hazard in my opinion. Andreas will probably miss flirting with my friends back home on Skype and our cleaning lady will have to find a new place to take breaks from her adult-sitting job for the old man upstairs.

I will miss the boys.

I will never again have three people deny claim to the bottle of champagne that sat idle in the freezer for three months after exploding. No one will fog the house with the aroma of aerosol spray at 4am. I will miss the orange juice they bring me when I am sick and the Spanish translation service they provide when I need just about anything. I'll definitely miss having the option of them bringing me clean clothes later in the day when I spill my morning coffee. Never again will I possibly live with three people with such odd dietary habits - cookies with caviar? Nutella with a spoon? And the copious amounts of microwaved eggs?!? I will miss them standing at the threshold of my door narrating the previous night’s debauchery or listening to my gripes of the day.

And I will miss peering out my bedroom door to see three men scampering about the flat like children in just their underwear….It's been a fun 15 months.

Fancy a Dip in the Harbour?

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mr Twain

I come from a family of sailors and a family deeply entrenched in the US Navy so the idea that I do not know how to sail has always been unsettling for me – but so is the idea of not having a job in a few months when my MBA runway comes to an end. That whole reality thing seems a bit daunting.

And then I was faced with the decision to spend a weekend thrashing through consulting cases and calculating profitability potentials….forward and backwards….or go sailing in Italy…..It really is surprising how quickly I made up my mind!

Yeah, I postponed selling my soul to case cracking for just one more weekend – with admittedly very little hesitation. I quickly booked a ticket to Milan and set out the travel details with a few other classmates. I did sign up with a moment of trepidation - I had never officially sailed where I had any ounce of responsibility. Surely this wouldn’t be an issue.

The event was sponsored by Rolex and was organized (in the finest of fashions) by SDA Bocconi from Milan. As I thumbed through the instruction pack I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the packing suggestion list. Within 5 minutes I had ignored it completely and packed as if I was headed out to sea for the next three years. The next sigh came when I saw the regatta (did I mention there was a racing element involved??) schedule – two divisions – A and B. Great. I sent a report back to the States to let my parents know about my upcoming induction into the family – but not to worry I was just going to be cruising in the B Division. False. Apparently we had agreed for the serious racing. I was going to have to take this seriously so naturally I went back to the sports store and bought a pair of sailing gloves. I felt like the kid that shows up on the first day of school with bright white runners (I tried to not let anyone see me rip the price tags off on Day 1).

The venue was amazing. Santa Margherita, Italy. After a bit of a delayed arrival from Milan, we took a quick 2km taxi ride from the train station to the boats – 2km for 20 euros. Seriously? Seemed a bit arbitrary on the rate, but our driver gave us the most enthusiastic driving tour of the village pointing our each bar with unmatched fervor. We said a quick hello to our floating home for the next four days then headed up to a little villa that happened to sit atop a hill with finely manicured landscaping and sweeping views of the harbor. Nearly 500 MBAs (with a sprinkling of Alumni and Masters) chatted away before we moved the party down the hill and eventually to a boat.

I am not really crazy about the idea of alcohol and boats and me, so I had decided to take myself to bed which required disembarking the party boat that swayed slowly as people danced with amazing energy for the hours we were keeping. Lucky for me I had a few gentlemen helping me back to fixed land. Unlucky for the few gentlemen. Right before the last step I took someone said ‘No that’s not a step’. Indeed a step it was not. And fresh harbor water it was not, but swimming I was – as was the poor guy that tried to avert disaster for the both of us.

Things were off to a great start or you could say they were going quite swimmingly. Then this whole racing thing started and guns were going off and countdowns started and I felt like I should have brought along a copy of ‘Sailing for Dummies.’ Thank goodness we had 1. A great Italian Skipper – Leonardo 2. A great and extremely patient Italian Skipper - Leonardo.

You could argue that we had the fastest boat and that it was completely disadvantaged by its crew. As we passed boats going upwind they coveted our fancy racing sails, as they passed us flying their Spinnakers on the way back it was a role reversal. No one coveted any part of our boat when we finally unveiled our blue and white Spinnaker sail…..horizontally. At this point I don’t know much about sailing, but I did know that we had done something wrong. We couldn’t take it down fast enough – the committee boat did manage to sneak in a quick cell phone photo and a good laugh.

And this was just Day 1. After three races we anchored up near Portofino Harbor and went for a swim. Like a true professional, I was fascinated with the clarity of the water so it clearly made sense to open my eyes underwater to take a look around. That would be the last time I saw clearly as I donated my last pair of contact lenses to the Sea. Last pair as in I have one left and am stuck with just one in my right eye as I wait for a new delivery from the US. It’s been a real bang-up 24 hours for me at this point, but nothing in me wanted to be anywhere else than on that boat.

Bike Ride Anyone?

‘It’s like riding a bike.’

They say this when you go away from something and after a while away you come back and getting into the swing of things again is, well, just like riding a bike.

So it was back to work time for a few months over the summer. We all scattered around the globe for our glamorous MBA internships after we spent months courting companies for the perfect summer gig. All those late nights suddenly had a curfew with an early wake up the next day. Consulting projects called my name and it was back to researching, learning and strategizing. The training wheels were certainly off as I was thrown into the deep end of a project with only one directive – two months to get it done! This was exciting as I was about to dive in to a solar project (a space where my heart lies). I will admit that there was a three day transition. The last time I was in this ‘working world’ it was in an office decorated purely by hospital-bright fluorescents and the booming voice of a man that rivaled Napoléon in stature and style. Now I headed in to an unstructured environment with soft gray walls and even softer voices. This was not going to be like riding the same bike, this was going to be a ride straight up hill, but at least it was on a luxury bike.

Getting back to work was not the only return to old habits that this summer would hold. One morning I dropped a few papers onto the floor and had to twist, contort and practically kneel down in order to pick them back up. My range of motion wasn’t what it once was. Realizing the effects of multiple months of sedentary life and limited physical activity with no stretching, I went down to the basement and sorted through the boxes that held what was formerly my NYC apartment. I shifted through old clothes, books and dishes before finding my yoga mat. I signed up for classes in one of the old Mill buildings in town and lied to the receptionist about how long it had been since I had practiced. Keeping the ‘diving into the deep end’ theme, I started back to Bikram Yoga – nothing better than Yoga in 100°F (~38° C) temps to limber up – after all, it would be like riding a bike right? That look on the poor guy’s face! On Day 1, I focused a little too hard on one pose that may or may not have a name that contains the word tree. I felt like a drunken flamingo and tipped a little too far to the right without releasing the pose. Nothing says nice to meet you like tackling someone equally sweaty in the midst of a packed 4:30 yoga class. I haven’t gone back to that class and I am not sure I am welcomed.

And then there was the living situation. I was back living at home for a few months as my internship gave me some flexibility with remote access and my client was nearby my parents’ home. Eleven years. It had been eleven years since I last lived at home - plenty of time for Mom and Dad to forget about my idiosyncrasies and for me to forgive theirs. So I settled in to the back bedroom overlooking the nature preserve and unpacked my clothes into the last piece of furniture that remains from the first 18 years of my life. I settled into familiar routines during the day, but the nights were not so easy. For the past 6 years I have lived above the constant hum of taxi cabs in NYC and motos in Barcelona. Now I could hear nothing but the occasional branch snap as a deer slipped back into the darkness after eating whatever mom has growing in her garden. Silence. I couldn’t deal with it and had to bring a fan in for some white noise and that barely worked.

It’s been two months and I feel like I am just getting into a schedule, sleeping at night, waking up early (without the swift kick in the pants from a cup of coffee) and executing a regular exercise routine – with the proper amount of balance of course. There isn’t much time left. Just enough for quick visit from the grandparents to let them know I am doing okay and one last trip to NYC to see old friends, visit old haunts and right a few wrongs. Then I am back to Barcelona to try out that bike again -speaking Spanish, hours of classes and landing that coveted job.

I hope I don’t forget how to pedal….December is going to be here before I know it and I don’t want to waste a moment.