Assimilating to the culture...or something like it.

There is inevitably a moment every day when I walk out my door and come to the startling realization that THESE PEOPLE DON’T SPEAK ENGLISH!!  It’s my daily dose of miniature panic attack and it never fails. Some days it comes in the form of a neighbor’s greeting on the stairs or, most often, as I wind my way down the street to the tram stop.  Much like getting used to waking up in a new place takes some time, I find four months apparently insufficient to make a total language change seem normal.  

Perhaps a large contributing factor is that German is not, by any means, the only language I hear on a regular basis.  Situated where we are in a district full of tourists and foreign embassies, I’ll guestimate in an average day I hear anywhere from four to ten different languages—it is dizzying.  But, curiously, this multi-lingual overstimulation has managed to usurp some feelings that have been practically cemented into my being—I am no longer ashamed to be an English speaker—even an American English speaker.  I’m proud--and not gun-toting proud to be an American—but proud (and quite thankful) that I learned as a child one of this world’s most universal languages.  

Audrey is enrolled in an English preschool here, but I suspect she is one of the only native English speaking kids in her class.  She was a shoe-in at a school known for a massive waiting list because Austrian parents want their kids to learn English while their brains are sponges—it’s undisputedly something that will give them a leg-up in their world.  I find that an incredibly refreshing concession in a city known for it’s icy attitude towards outsiders.  I also find some poetic justice in knowing that Audrey is contributing slim-to-no native-English-speaking fodder for those elite Austrian kids.  

As far as my German language acquisition goes, I’m kind of on the fence.  I manage to get along quite well in everyday situations.  I have given a few unfortunate people some half-decent directions around town, I manage well with most casual conversations on the U-bahn and I’m comfortable reading the trashy, low-brow newspapers.  I’m at a place where I should either choose to remain a degenerate German speaker or to push forward in the hopes of regaining something closer to fluency.  My feelings in that vein are well summed up by the word: “eh.”  

I honestly don’t think about it until I have call to speak German
…directly after my daily “What is the matter with you people?! Why don’t you speak English?!” reaction.

This is probably one of the reasons Americans find it difficult to assimilate to the culture here...that and the fact that people here are often unforgivably rude.  More on that later...

In other news, John just literally threw his “German Phrases for Dummies” book across the room and punctuated it's hard landing with a harrumph. We might need to take a rain check on the whole 'German Fluency' concept in the Schweighardt household...You'd be amazed how far gesticulation and grunting can get you.