Wherein I am an alien...

A Letter in the Style of a German Letter

                                Weimar, the 1st of February, 2014

Dear Germany, 

why and how are you still making me feel like an alien? 

I would rejoice upon hearing from you soon. 

With friendly greetings, 

Adrianna

Right-y-o. So. Hello 2014, Happy Year of the Horse, and all that jazz.

Despite having been here for a half year (today marks the 6-month milestone/kilometerstone!), I still:

1. cannot speak German
2. confuse people when I tell them I am an American ("You're not from China?")
3. do not understand weather in Celsius (my own fault for only reading forecasts in Fahrenheit)
4. have never seen "Forrest Gump"

Relevant* point of illustration #1:

The other day I decide to buy "Bio-Salat" for the first time (i.e. organic lettuce). You know. Since I'm already sorting all of my trash into paper/packaging/glass/compostables-aka-BioTrash/other, I might as well try the "Bio" produce, too.

Admittedly, another reason I went for the Bio-Salat (despite being habitually thrifty) was that I had T-minus 5 minutes 'til closing on a Saturday to get all my groceries, and two heads of Bio lettuce were all that remained in the crate, like the runts of the litter hoping to be adopted but have been quite ignored because they're a bit beyond the "Aww, puppy!" phase.

Speaking of which, does anyone remember that 90's game show, "Supermarket Sweep," where contestants ran mad around the store trying to scoop up as much expensive produce as possible?

It was like that, except I didn't win anything, and I wasn't purposely trying to grab valuable items. Ok, mostly had to do with the running around mad part.

Anyway, I get home and start to peel off the leaves for washing.

Hey wait, I did win something!

A slug.

1-cent Euro coin for scale

There was actually a second slug, too, but it was so tiny it seemed only marginally worth mentioning. As in, it was the width of mechanical pencil lead.

*Relevant because, let's face it, slugs are probably aliens.

Second point of illustration:

In recent attempts to ONLY SPEAK GERMAN, I have creatively made up such non-existent phrases as:

1. "Wasserwolken" (literally "water clouds")
2. "Denk außer der Kiste" (No one says this.)

when really trying to say:

1. "steam"
2. "think outside the box"

I have also entered a room saying, "Ich hoffe, ich habe dich nicht zerstört" instead of "Ich hoffe, ich habe dich nicht gestört."

Those few letters morphed my good intentions from "I hope I haven't disturbed you" into "I hope I haven't destroyed you."

Third point of illustration:

Ok, actually, this is going to be a meta-point of illustration (and quite possibly of anti-illustration), like, a frame-within-frame illustration (You still with me?):

Question:  You know what both restored my German-speaking self-esteem and made me feel like an alien-squared (a2)?

Answer:  Spending the evening of the Lunar New Year in Deutschland speaking only in Chinese. With "speaking" being loosely defined as "stuttering, rejecting proper grammar, and supplementing heavily with charades-like pantomiming." (Which I've gotten quite good at.)

Imagine that you've been around the Chinese language since birth, grew up attending "Chinese school" like all of the other Chinese-American kids in the neighborhood, even took a couple courses in college and spent a summer in the Motherland and YOU NO LONGER REMEMBER HOW TO SAY "WINDOW."

That was how bad it'd gotten.

6 months.

That was all it took to render me unable to speak the very language that so many here expect to be my mother tongue. (The irony.)

While wrapping dumplings (the most Chinese thing I've done since coming here -- and which is also really awesome in and of itself) my brain grasped at straws. Any time I tried to say something in Mandarin, if it didn't come to me in the first five seconds, the German equivalent immediately made itself available. (How useful.)

(Hey, so maybe when I get stumped trying to speak German, I should just speak to everyone in Chinese!)

Coming back to my apartment, I experienced for the first time ever relief to speak once again in German -- to once again be able to express myself! (This is not the norm. I usually feel like I can neither express complicated "legit" ideas nor contribute to conversations conducted in German.)

But WAIT. Let's get something straight here.

"The moral of the story"

When I first got here, in all my bedraggled jet-lagged glory, I wrote for all of the Internet (and therefore also for the NSA and really anyone in the world) to see:

"I'm not here to become fluent in German.
"I'm here to make lots of mistakes."**

**I actually also had the gall to add a smiley face. Such optimism.

But I'm kind of proud of myself for trying to set myself up for failure. I mean, I would in fact like to become fluent in German. That is a goal toward which I strive. And who enjoys making mistakes? Not I. But those first few hours (of 8400 total) were so overwhelming all I could do to cope was to aim low, to not carve out grand dreams and expectations before actually understanding the context of those dreams.

Now I've actually lived 4200 of those hours (give or take).

And what do I have to say? What kind of inspirational one-liner do I have to offer to wrap up this post?

Well, for starters, let's review something here. The Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange is a two-way swap. I can only imagine that the Germans in middle-of-nowhere Texas (and I can say this because I'm a Texan) are just maybe a little tired of saying:

1. Yes, German beer really is better than American beer.
2. Actually, I do know how to drive a car. (Manual at that.)
3. No, I do not wear Lederhosen to school.
4. I have never seen "The Sound of Music." (Which took place in Austria.)

So. Much. Respect.

I have so much respect for anyone who has ever lived in a foreign country, whether as a student or an immigrant or a refugee. Nobody can prepare you for the inescapable feeling of (appropriately termed) alienation you will feel, submerged head under water in a salty sea of creatures who cannot understand you because, unlike you, they are not freshwater frogs.

Ok, that analogy didn't work.

But say the frog used to be a prince. And he knew how to run his kingdom. Pay his respects to the king. Use silverware from outside to inside. Wear the proper regalia. Converse with courtiers (who were notorious for saying one thing, but thinking another).

Then suddenly he is put under a spell and (being a frog) cannot speak. He is forced to leave his home for fear of being squashed by a frying pan (Nursemaid Nana has a strong forearm) but must, without hope of reversing the curse, somehow survive. Everything he has ever learned will be lost upon his new habitat. He will move awkwardly in his new webbed-feet body. He will grimace at the first taste of "flies for breakfast" when he could really use some peanut butter.

He will be alone.

Until the day the princess bestows a kiss, which in the case of this metaphor is...

...coming to terms with self and finding inner peace?