A cunning linguist

I like having surprises and/or knockdown "hilarious" quips ready for Kathryn when she fetches me at Tegel Airport in Berlin.

Incidentally, when writing out directions for me to get wherever in the city via the train (U-Bahn und S-Bahn), she'll always put the name of the station I should go to in quotes. So the directions will read something like: Take the U8 line to "Voltastraße" and then go to whatever exit, etc.

OK... does that mean I get off at Voltastraße? Or is she sneakily hinting that I don't get off at Voltastraße? Maybe the station really isn't called Voltastraße -- which, I believe, roughly translates to "Voltron Street." It's adjacent to Transfoermars Platz.

Anyway, several years back for my first Berlin trip, I walked out of luggage claim with my (comparatively) crazy long hair and beard. She hadn't seen me in seven or so years and was shocked. It rocked.

Next trip I had this gem prepared:

What do you call it when a Berlin airport practices opening and closing its front door?

Tegel exercises! 

She tried to get the bus to turn around and drop me back off. And then last year she sent one of her henchmen to get me, thus denying me the opportunity for more airport shenanigans. So this year, with the help of those Pimsleur CDs, I was ready to spreche her brain!

So we get on the bus and it starts to roll. But before I can break out the Deutsch, horns are honked, tires are screeched and our bus stops. In the middle of the road. With a dozen or so cars waiting. It seemed the bus cut off a car and that driver was mad, and our driver was mad that that driver was mad. Or the car tried to cut off the bus and honked when the bus didn't let him, making our driver mad.

Either way, our driver was mad.

So he stops the bus in the middle of traffic, gets out and approaches the car. There is some yelling and gesturing, as far as we could tell, before our driver meandered back to the bus. While continuing to gesture/turn around. And look pissed off. 

It seems a bad idea to piss off a German with a bus, no? 

So that all happens and the driver finally gets back in and starts driving. Which is when I say... Tell me, Kathryn, what would you like to do today. Would you like to get something to eat? Or drink? Wine or beer? I would like to get something to drink, but later. Not now.

All in German. Grammatically solid and reasonably well-pronounced German, in fact. (I'd write it out in German but I don't know how to spell many of the words. Maybe I record audio and post. Maybe not. Just get the damn CD from your local library.) 

The reaction? Stunned silence. Look of disbelief. More stunned silence. More disbelief. Rinse and repeat.

Outstanding.

Of course, I used about a third of my German vocabulary right there, but it was worth it. 

Exercise that, Tegel!

Coming up later ...

Cats, large women cutting in line, those crazy communists and Mattress Transport 101.