sprechen Sie meine Sprache

Returning downtown yesterday, after dodging on the half-block walk home drifters and dog-coils and chewing gum laced with glass shards, I phoned a hotel in Germany. Shamelessly ignoring any international decorum or respect for other cultures, I immediately responded "Ah, hello, room four-oh-eight, please."

It occurred I hadn't fully engaged the receptionist; after half a second of silence I used my 'memory-ear' and realized she'd had the nerve to be speaking fluent German. To me. On the telephone.

Admittedly, I didn't 'Yes, And?' her as my Groundlings instructor would have me do.

It reminded me of the first time I was in Germany, and how hard it was to get a message across when you don't speak the same language. Sausage was about all that was eaten on that trip because it was pronounceable and everywhere. If you ever go and have a hankering, you'll find a sausage vendor among the loose concrete tiles of an impeccably clean courtyard between what remains of the Berlin Wall and a Long John Silver's franchise; the vendor wears his grill like a front-pack, using a harness and an umbrella; East meets West meets cheap street meat.

This freaky 'Berlin Banger' food-flashback reminded me of my German friend, whom, after six weeks of living in the Hotel Van Blanc with Spike and I (and occasionally her sister) got noticeably excited over a loaf of bread. Living in a van, food-shopping together became a bonding ritual.

We hit up the supermarket each day for hot chicken-halves, and for apples, if we weren't tearing away from angry orchard owners who saw us taking samples. We'd fill our water containers using the sink in the grocery store toilets and brush our teeth there too. At the deli counter in twenty-odd different cities we feigned confusion using the kind of bad lies that only an accent can hide (Spike had multiple accents) while eating free sample-slices of strange, new meats like pepperoni and roast beef, and ham, saying "ooh, never had this before, this is good," before we went "schnäcking" among the bulk bins, watching for security guards to pass, cramming handfuls of cashews into our mouths.

So we're in a town of less than 5,000 and they carry her favorite kind of specialty German bread.

"Ooh, Grunkern and Dinkel!" The German exclaimed in broken English.

For some reason I recall us barefoot, despite being in the grocery store. Not only is legal in New Zealand, it's common, and quite liberating. Since more people go barefoot, people are both more mindful of tossing rubbish and more likely to scold those who throw things away.

This story is an example of how when we communicate, we can have fun. It's also an excuse to remind unhealthy people who contribute to broken glass on city streets that cashews are high in protein, and that I have a bag; they're welcome to come over and eat nuts anytime.

Stop littering - I've dug glass shards from my heel with a knife, but that's another trip.