Abbey was pregnant. All was well in her world! And if Abbey was deleriously happy, then everybody else must be, too. That's when I got the call.
"I've found you a boyfriend!"
"What?"
"A boyfriend! You wanted one and I found you one. Although....one catch...he's in Germany"
I'd never been to Germany, this could be a benefit, not a catch. And a quick scan of flight prices from London supported my flicker of interest. "OK," I said "set me up."
So an exchange of email addresses and phone numbers, he gave me a call, we chatted on and off for some weeks. We tried Skype, but I got ridiculously shy. I know: ridiculous. Then when I was in between assignments, I found myself on a flight to Germany to stay with someone I barely knew. Because surely that's what you do when you're travelling - you take risks and open yourself to the great and beautiful opportunities that the Universe (and Abbey) are providing. (Amsterdam anyone? Ha! What is it with me and old men???)
Lutz picked me up from Stuttgart airport and took me back to his small village where I was to stay with him, his father, Herbert and his dog, Alberich. Although Lutz is a pilot and speaks 5 languages, (yes, I was very impressed) his father doesn't speak any English, and we communicated through the minimal German I know, the minimal English he knew, the smatterings of French and Italian we both know, we wrote numbers down and prayed to heaven above that we weren't left alone in each other's company for too long. After I'd returned to NZ, I was speaking to Lutz on Skype one day and his father heard him speaking in English and correctly assumed he was speaking to me so came rushing into the room to speak with me:
'Hallo!'
'Hi!'
...then the great silence as we simultaneously realised that he still doesn't speak English and I'd gotten no further with my German.
I enjoy languages, but was surprised at how difficult I found the pronunciation of German. I went into bootcamp for 2 weeks, learning how to say 'ich' properly. Finally Lutz just gave up on me and said "yeah, I know what you mean" *pats head condescendingly* and let me progress to the rest of the sentence: '...sprechen kein Deutsch'. A most useful phrase, second only to 'Weisswein, danke'.
Having said that, I felt much better about my feeble attempts when Herbert's girlfriend, Antya (that's completely creative spelling, for the record) commented in surprised delight after I trotted out one of the basic words I had 'mastered', that her daughter has been married to an American for 20 years, and she has never once heard him say a single word of German. Even when they're in Germany - nary a 'danke'.
So I was just getting a hold on this German business, when we went to Italy and I didn't need it anymore. It's great travelling with a person who is so multilingual, it just makes life easier. You can learn and try when you want to, but when you're tired and over it and just need the information, you have your own personal translator there with you. I was amused to find though, when Lutz spoke German, he had his normal body language; when he spoke English, again, his normal body language; French: the same; Italian: hands flying everywhere, gesticulating wildly. (I never heard him speak Portuguese for those of you who are counting). As a matter of experiment, I tried holding his hands down when he spoke Italian - he said he couldn't think.
I have found Italian quite easy to pick up (this was my 3rd time there) as the vowel sounds and how the words are broken up into syllables are similar to Maori - which I learned (basically) at school as a child. I can hear the words in Italian, whereas in French they may be saying a word I recognise in its written form, but I don't recognise it in its spoken form. And German, I just can't replicate the noises. Well, not properly, anyway. Apparently. So I've been told. I'm not bitter.
I'd been warned prior to going to Meina on Lago Maggiore (near Milan) that it was a sleepy place. That all you want to do there is sleep - but I didn't really believe it. Then when we got there - all I wanted to do was sleep. I'm curious to know what it is that affects us so - we assumed atmospheric pressures. And one of these days I'll research it. But today is not that day. I wondered how the people that live there function on a daily basis. I felt like I was continually wading through mud.
The weather alternated between bright sunshine and dramatic electrical storms. And we whiled away our days swimming in the lake, playing gin rummy on its shores, eating beautiful Italian food, playing with the dog, and watching many episodes of Dexter when it was stormy. There was an Irish bar there, which amused me greatly as it seemed so incongruous. The incongruity was amplified when the men we met there looked very hard and incredibly dodgy. I found out later one was the chief of police. Lutz and his friend, Dario, who were lovely, gentle men, looked quite dangerous when sitting next to them also, such was the reach of their dark aura. (I told you I'd been watching alot of Dexter episodes, didn't I?)
By the time we moved on from Italy, a number of weeks later, the days were reaching 37 degrees, and driving into the mountains it dropped to a respectable 30 degrees. (These days I whine at 23! Happy to be home?)
We had a great tour about Northern Italy - but I am sad to report that the presence of a boyfriend did keep me out of trouble so there is nothing of interest to report other than I did it and it was great and if you haven't been, then go. I swam in the Adriatic Sea, visited Verona and Venezia, Ferrara, Ravenna, Treviso, then back to Germany via Austria rather than Swizterland, this time.
And then back to the UK for work. I thought I'd never see Lutz again, but there was one more adventure left in us, it would seem, and we met up again in Bern/e (Hi Sherif!), toured a little through Switzerland, Northern Germany (toes in the Baltic Sea!), Popped into Poland for a couple of hours just to say I've been there (Szczecin - don't ask me to say it, but my understanding is that you just ignore the z's) then for my grande finale in Berlin (I love that city!), before making my way after more tearful farewells back to Switzerland to visit my brother in Geneva, see my friend Cila from Neuchatel, collect my snowboard and climb back on the plane to head back to NZ. I almost missed my transfer at Heathrow (due to a late connection), and turned up in Auckland with neither suitcase nor snowboard. But their homing instincts are remarkable and they found their way home without me. Wagging their tails behind them. Happy Ending.
Oh, and PS: the best Mojitos I've ever had were in Germany. German precision counts for something!
"I've found you a boyfriend!"
"What?"
"A boyfriend! You wanted one and I found you one. Although....one catch...he's in Germany"
I'd never been to Germany, this could be a benefit, not a catch. And a quick scan of flight prices from London supported my flicker of interest. "OK," I said "set me up."
So an exchange of email addresses and phone numbers, he gave me a call, we chatted on and off for some weeks. We tried Skype, but I got ridiculously shy. I know: ridiculous. Then when I was in between assignments, I found myself on a flight to Germany to stay with someone I barely knew. Because surely that's what you do when you're travelling - you take risks and open yourself to the great and beautiful opportunities that the Universe (and Abbey) are providing. (Amsterdam anyone? Ha! What is it with me and old men???)
Lutz picked me up from Stuttgart airport and took me back to his small village where I was to stay with him, his father, Herbert and his dog, Alberich. Although Lutz is a pilot and speaks 5 languages, (yes, I was very impressed) his father doesn't speak any English, and we communicated through the minimal German I know, the minimal English he knew, the smatterings of French and Italian we both know, we wrote numbers down and prayed to heaven above that we weren't left alone in each other's company for too long. After I'd returned to NZ, I was speaking to Lutz on Skype one day and his father heard him speaking in English and correctly assumed he was speaking to me so came rushing into the room to speak with me:
'Hallo!'
'Hi!'
...then the great silence as we simultaneously realised that he still doesn't speak English and I'd gotten no further with my German.
I enjoy languages, but was surprised at how difficult I found the pronunciation of German. I went into bootcamp for 2 weeks, learning how to say 'ich' properly. Finally Lutz just gave up on me and said "yeah, I know what you mean" *pats head condescendingly* and let me progress to the rest of the sentence: '...sprechen kein Deutsch'. A most useful phrase, second only to 'Weisswein, danke'.
Having said that, I felt much better about my feeble attempts when Herbert's girlfriend, Antya (that's completely creative spelling, for the record) commented in surprised delight after I trotted out one of the basic words I had 'mastered', that her daughter has been married to an American for 20 years, and she has never once heard him say a single word of German. Even when they're in Germany - nary a 'danke'.
So I was just getting a hold on this German business, when we went to Italy and I didn't need it anymore. It's great travelling with a person who is so multilingual, it just makes life easier. You can learn and try when you want to, but when you're tired and over it and just need the information, you have your own personal translator there with you. I was amused to find though, when Lutz spoke German, he had his normal body language; when he spoke English, again, his normal body language; French: the same; Italian: hands flying everywhere, gesticulating wildly. (I never heard him speak Portuguese for those of you who are counting). As a matter of experiment, I tried holding his hands down when he spoke Italian - he said he couldn't think.
I have found Italian quite easy to pick up (this was my 3rd time there) as the vowel sounds and how the words are broken up into syllables are similar to Maori - which I learned (basically) at school as a child. I can hear the words in Italian, whereas in French they may be saying a word I recognise in its written form, but I don't recognise it in its spoken form. And German, I just can't replicate the noises. Well, not properly, anyway. Apparently. So I've been told. I'm not bitter.
I'd been warned prior to going to Meina on Lago Maggiore (near Milan) that it was a sleepy place. That all you want to do there is sleep - but I didn't really believe it. Then when we got there - all I wanted to do was sleep. I'm curious to know what it is that affects us so - we assumed atmospheric pressures. And one of these days I'll research it. But today is not that day. I wondered how the people that live there function on a daily basis. I felt like I was continually wading through mud.
The weather alternated between bright sunshine and dramatic electrical storms. And we whiled away our days swimming in the lake, playing gin rummy on its shores, eating beautiful Italian food, playing with the dog, and watching many episodes of Dexter when it was stormy. There was an Irish bar there, which amused me greatly as it seemed so incongruous. The incongruity was amplified when the men we met there looked very hard and incredibly dodgy. I found out later one was the chief of police. Lutz and his friend, Dario, who were lovely, gentle men, looked quite dangerous when sitting next to them also, such was the reach of their dark aura. (I told you I'd been watching alot of Dexter episodes, didn't I?)
By the time we moved on from Italy, a number of weeks later, the days were reaching 37 degrees, and driving into the mountains it dropped to a respectable 30 degrees. (These days I whine at 23! Happy to be home?)
We had a great tour about Northern Italy - but I am sad to report that the presence of a boyfriend did keep me out of trouble so there is nothing of interest to report other than I did it and it was great and if you haven't been, then go. I swam in the Adriatic Sea, visited Verona and Venezia, Ferrara, Ravenna, Treviso, then back to Germany via Austria rather than Swizterland, this time.
And then back to the UK for work. I thought I'd never see Lutz again, but there was one more adventure left in us, it would seem, and we met up again in Bern/e (Hi Sherif!), toured a little through Switzerland, Northern Germany (toes in the Baltic Sea!), Popped into Poland for a couple of hours just to say I've been there (Szczecin - don't ask me to say it, but my understanding is that you just ignore the z's) then for my grande finale in Berlin (I love that city!), before making my way after more tearful farewells back to Switzerland to visit my brother in Geneva, see my friend Cila from Neuchatel, collect my snowboard and climb back on the plane to head back to NZ. I almost missed my transfer at Heathrow (due to a late connection), and turned up in Auckland with neither suitcase nor snowboard. But their homing instincts are remarkable and they found their way home without me. Wagging their tails behind them. Happy Ending.
Oh, and PS: the best Mojitos I've ever had were in Germany. German precision counts for something!
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