We had fun! Shelby met some of my co-workers and got the nickel tour of my office. The visual portion of the art show -- several rooms full of paintings and photographs, and a couple of short films -- worked much better for us than the spoken-word segment. For Shelby, it was a lost cause from the beginning; for me, total comprehension still usually requires total concentration, and this was impossible in a big room full of other conversations. Other peoples' talk would die down just enough that I could catch a few sentences really well, and then the background noise would rise and I'd lose the thread again; it was a lot like driving with the radio tuned to a station that keeps fading in and out.
Chit-chat was about as dismal as that at any other office party. I noticed that while a typical American question to ask someone newly settled in the States might be "and what's your favorite thing about living in America so far?", Shelby was asked "and what do you find most difficult about living in Germany?" Telling comment on the difference between national psyches, or just a case of individual pessimism?
Posted by Kevin at June 13, 2004 11:32 PM