scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

9.5.07

in context

i can tell my german is getting ever so slightly better. Ever so slightly. Little, tiny increments. Possibly, baby steps. i can get the dog successfully vaccinated and anti-flea and ticky things and wormy pills. i can navigate the grocery (even when the cashier is having a minor crisis, as has now been proven) and the bank and the post office and the ikea and the restaurants and the doctor and the hospital (because all Fancy Schmancy ultrasounds happen at the hospital, of course, and just because the one doctor kind of speaks english, all the other ones totally don't, and their receptionists are very nice but simultaneously terrifying). i can communicate with the people at the dog park (and, can conclude that many of the people at the dog park are crazy racist bastards, and really i just want to avoid them). i can do just about everything i've tried if i can rehearse in my head first. i can understand things people say to me if they are in context, but i often have no idea what specific words are actually coming out of their mouths, and i'm not sure if that's a positive thing or not. There are no shades of meaning. No delicacies. No sprawling vocabulary. i kind of feel like a Neanderthal, pointing and gesturing and hoping for the best. or possibly a trained monkey, using the same constructions every time.

Lunchy conversations are hard. and isolating. it's noisy, and there's a million people all talking very fast at the same time, and there are no clues to what they're talking about. and the chattiest ones always have the strongest accents so catching a word here and there is as good as it gets.

Labels: expat

scrawled @ 14:50