by Brady Gossett \u201919<\/p>\n
I\u2019m headed to Stuttgart, Germany, on my first international flight, so pumped I can hardly sit still. But I need to settle down for this nine-hour trip. On my left, Professor Greg Redding \u201988 asks me how my finals went, shows me a few pictures of his cats back home, and tells me how much he\u2019s going to miss them.<\/p>\n
An hour or two out he asks: \u201cAre you nervous?\u201d<\/p>\n
Why would I be nervous? I\u2019m just excited to get there\u2026\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Should I be nervous?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n We land in Stuttgart and clear passport control. I\u2019m practically sprinting to keep up with Dr. Redding as we rush out of the airport to our bus to T\u00fcbingen. I grab my seat, hold my bags between my knees, and try to catch my breath.<\/p>\n Then he flips the switch\u2014German speaking only. Ohhhh scheisse<\/em>. It just got real. Here I thought that I was just going to see a bunch of cool museums and eat good food.<\/p>\n Is this why he asked if I was nervous?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n In T\u00fcbingen we pull up to our youth hostel, put our bags away, and walk over to Kalender, a small walk-up restaurant that Dr. Redding has recommended for its kebabs. I casually walk up to the register to order one, the guy behind the counter says something to me, and I don\u2019t understand a word. It\u2019s as if I haven\u2019t taken a German class in my life. I mean, this guy sounds nothing like Professors Redding or Brian Tucker \u201998.<\/p>\n I am stuttering and pointing\u2014I make a fool of myself. I\u2019ve traveled more than 4,000 miles just to feel like a complete idiot, but I get my food and, let me tell you\u2026 d\u00f6ner kebabs are fantastic!<\/p>\n We\u2019re feasting on the delicious d\u00f6ner kebabs when a short, rough-looking man walks up, speaks to us, and, what do you know\u2014I can\u2019t understand a single word. So he sticks his hand out and shakes a few coins around. We all give the man our change.<\/p>\n \u201cDanke sch\u00f6n!\u201d he says. Hey, I understand that!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n A few days later we\u2019re all missing home and decide to eat dinner at a burger place. I get my food last so I\u2019m stuck sitting alone at a table an arm\u2019s length away from my friends.<\/p>\n Then a married couple joins me. I\u2019ve been told it is completely normal for strangers to sit at your table for dinner in Germany, but I\u2019m nervous as hell. In my best German, I ask the couple, \u201cKommen Sie aus T\u00fcbingen?\u201d (Are you from T\u00fcbingen?).<\/p>\n \u201cblahblahblahblahblah,\u201d the husband replies.<\/p>\n \u201cBitte?\u201d (Excuse me?) I say, pointing to my ear as if he weren\u2019t speaking loud enough.<\/p>\n His wife intervenes. She says to me, in English, that she respects my attempt to speak their language. She also points out that her husband speaks a very strong, southern German dialect, rather than the more formal German that we learn in the classroom. She tells me that sometimes even she can\u2019t understand what he\u2019s saying.<\/p>\n Then the wife and I have a much slower German conversation. She gently corrects the things I say wrong and offers tips about speaking and listening to German. It\u2019s not the conversation I had planned, and my friends are laughing at me on the way out. But I\u2019m smiling.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when the fun begins. The next day I walk up to the guy at Kalender, tell him what I want, make some small talk, pay, and thank him. Nailed it!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The next night we eat at a sit-down restaurant called the Neckar Muller. I order a traditional dish from Southern Germany called Maltaushen\u2014essentially giant ravioli. Tastes great. I ask the waitress for the bill\u2014no problem. I am rolling.<\/p>\n Those little exchanges where you come out successful are big confidence boosters. Now I\u2019m learning about this country in its own words, from its own people. Still, my friends and I have to laugh about the embarrassing conversations we attempted.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s\u00a0a few days later<\/strong> and our plane lands in Atlanta, GA. As we walk through U.S. Customs, it\u2019s so comforting to see signs written in English, such a relief not to have to work just to communicate with someone. We make it through security and head to our gate for our flight to Indianapolis when I look to my left and my jaw drops.<\/p>\n QDOBA! My favorite!<\/p>\n I practically run over there, and you better believe I have NO issues whatsoever ordering my burrito and savoring that first bite.<\/p>\n It feels great to be home\u2014but it\u2019s no d\u00f6ner kebab.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n BRADY GOSSETT \u201919 <\/strong>is a philosophy major and spent the summer as an intern in the Office of Communications and Marketing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Brady Gossett \u201919 \u201cTravel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. Broad, wholesome, and charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":4337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-videos"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/10\/germany.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4336"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4340,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4336\/revisions\/4340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}