Wednesday, April 2, 2008

An Iraqi, a Mexican and an American walk into a bar...

This isn't a cheezy joke, it's for realz. My first day in my Deutsch course, we learn about these things called "Relativsätze." Basically you apply some nitpicky grammar to a case where you're talking about a thing indirectly, but the grammar is beside the point. Our teacher instructed us to practice the Relativsätze by creating questions for a quiz. (ex: "Who is the model that moderates Germany's Next Top Model?") We would form them on the subjects of geography, sport, gossip and politics.

I was grouped with two people that had not been in the previous courses that I'd taken at the school, so naturally I asked their names and where they were from. The girl answered with a smiling face, "Ich heiße Ingrid und ich komme aus Mexico." The young man, whose name escapes me, answered that he was from Iraq. Ingrid then took her turn to inquire as to what my origin was. I could feel my cheeks blush as I answered, "Von den U.S.A." I'm not sure if they felt that the following pause was awkward, but I did. I felt embarassed and hoped to goodness that they wouldn't think ill of me.

"Well," I started to tell them,"we're all together in politics, so we might as well start off with that." Ingrid laughed and the young man from Iraq said, "Good idea. Let's start with that."

3 comments:

Regina said...

I thought this was precious. I forwarded this one to friends and family.

Cam said...

By all means!

max said...

This left me smiling! Leave it to Rachel to make things work beautifully in difficult circumstances! Have you considered running for political office?