After one month of wandering around a foreign city without any grasp of its language, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I’m sure you’ve noticed, too, that overhearing a conversation in a strange tongue, and in some distant metropolis, can induce a linguistic panic. All of a sudden everyone else is in on this joke and I’m relegated to my own bubble. I get my revenge by laughing at the abundance of funny words that make a regular appearance on storefronts or displays: Berlin is full of fahrt (journey), uhren (clocks) and schmuck (jewelry). Sadly, the game where I play “How many schmucks can I spot on a block?” makes me feel infantile after the fifth round. So, in an effort to reverse all fears that I’m a stupid American, I made up another game where I take note of what people say in English as I pass by them in the environs of Berlin. In other words, what do people talk about when they’re on the subway, in a coffee shop or taking a leisurely stroll? I assure you, it’s not Goethe, but when people talk in German it might as well be. Items overheard: “ … but you have to bring it into the classroom,” said a hippy-dippy woman, age 50ish, talking to a male companion in Berlin’s rebuilt downtown district. “Mom, where are you,” asked a teenager in Zara by the retail district. “ … a bagel in the grocery store,” said a teenager at the busy Zoo train station “Are we there,” one uncertain British tourist asked another on the subway. “Not all Germans are right-wing bastards,” retorted a 20ish cad, with a British accent, to his group of friends in the hippest part of the former East Berlin. “You were allover them: ‘Hey lady, can I buy you a drink,’” mocked an American 20-something to his inebriated friend on the subway. English is, without a doubt, the language of poetry.
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The Berlin Diaries: All That Glitters Is Schmuck