Yesterday we took a different route to the cafeteria (Which has amazing food with the most personable chef. Another blog for another day.) and in doing so, encountered fun, new archetecture and unique exterior decoration.
That's a lime green building with cows, yes. And its hard to see but the one on the top right has a pig on it. Pete didnt want in this pic for fear of blending in.
After orientation stuff, we checked out the local grocery store with a couple friends. Everything is seemingly cheap comparatively, although there are different packaging sizes. In Europe, its BYOB, not beer or beverage, you have to bring your own bag. I just use my backpack.
When checking out at the store, I was the last of my friends in the line with one local behind me. None of us had very many things and there was only one divider thing. (You know the plastic stick that seperates one persons items from another) Because there was only one, all of us had made a larger, very obvious space between our items. You could tell which items belonged to each person. Gina was in front of me and when her last item was picked up to be scanned, I picked up the plastic divider, looked at the space between my items and the woman's items behind me, hesitated, and then decided to establish an unmistakable difference between our items. The woman laughed and started talking to me in German. With not having an encounter with a local thus far and knowing very little German, I froze in shock. All I could do was laugh and smile back knowing why she was laughing.
I simply turned around and paid for my items. When we got out of the store my friends and I laughed about what happened. Gina said something along the lines of, "Oh my gosh you're so legit, she totally thought you were German."
A lot of people have told me that I look Norwegian and even German before, but being taken as German in Germany is a completely new experience. I think I am very fortunate to be able to fit in appearance wise, in that aspect I, for some reason, felt honored and even proud, but the language barrier felt like an obligation and even an embarrassment. I purposefully didn't reply out of fear that I would reveal my actual identity. That I would lose the respect she had just paid me.
This makes me curious about the many encounters to come. If that experience just happened to be a luck of the draw type deal or if it will be a regular occurance. And as my German improves along with my confidence, I am also curious to see how my feelings will change about responding.
Sipping peach tea bedside about to cash in for the night.
Cheers!
Abbey & Pete
P.s. Pete found dessert at the grocery store. It also happens to be one of my childhood favorites!
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