Living in Germany (or How a Tadpole and Superman Are Same Thing)

I like living in Germany.

I really do.  And I think 80% of the time I do a good job of "pretending to be German".  Because that's the point of study abroad, right?  You try to become like, or at least understand, the people you're living with for a semester or year.  I am becoming a model German citizen - I separate my trash in strange ways, I stop at red lights on crosswalks, I carry cloth bags with me to the store, I walk everywhere (a feat, I know), I go to the bakery to get fresh bread every day (but seriously, within 3 days a little bread roll becomes a deadly weapon, so you have to.  Also, why wouldn't you?! The bread here is fantastic).  I'm even starting to dress more German - leather boots, a huge wallet for all my changes, more scarves than you can shake a stick at...Heck, I've managed to figure out this whole woah-I-have-coins-that-are-Euros-too-I'm-not-as-broke-as-I-thought-I-was.

Yes, I am becoming more and more German.

And then there is the other 20% of the time.  There are just some days when it becomes painfully obvious that I am not German.  Usually when I open my mouth and say something wrong (or occasionally when I push on a door when I should have pulled.  Embarrassing).  When you fail, and I mean utterly fail, at expressing something to someone because you lack the grammatical ability to string hundreds of verbs together or because you're missing that ONE WORD that would fully express all your feelings....There is truly nothing more devastating than that.  Because you end the conversation feeling terrible and the person you were talking to thinks you're insane.  Or stupid. Or both.  Or that you have the "emotional range of a teaspoon" (to quote Hermione Granger from Harry Potter).  Or all three.

Living in a foreign country is like being a spy.  You don't want to be "found out".  You don't want other people to know you're foreign until it casually comes in conversation ("Oh, by the way, I'm from America.  Oh really? You are? I thought you were German!) and you can giggle about it.

What do a tadpole and Superman have in common?

For those of you not comic book
or pop culture inclined,
this is a tadpole.

Nice pose.

Answer - they both are trying to hide their identities  from everyone else.

Living in a foreign country is like being a tadpole among a bunch of baby fish.  You look the same (mostly) until you freakishly sprout legs and decide you want to live on land.

Living in a foreign country is like being Superman.  You're an alien that can fly, lift trucks, shoot lasers out your eyes, leaping building in a single bound (and a whole bunch of other cool stuff).  But you live as a nerdy reporter.  You're not fooling anyone with those glasses, Clark.


The upshot is this: You will eventually be found out as an impostor.  


A semi-aquatic amphibian.  A super-powered alien.  An American student.


But you know what?  All of the above are pretty awesome.

And it's fun to keep them guessing.


(Also, my Lion King review will be up soonish!)