Are you from England?

When I first arrived in Germany, I was so self-conscious about being foreign. I would walk down the street thinking that somehow everyone knew I was here from the U.S. It felt as though I was wearing a big sign advertising where I was from.

I recognized there was something a bit neurotic about this. I asked my German teacher if he thought people would easily recognize that I wasn’t from Germany. He said yes, but it didn’t have anything to do with how I looked or dressed. He said there’s something intangible that people would pick up on.

After a few months of living in Germany and walking down the same streets every day, after the newness and strangeness had started to fade, I didn’t feel so self-consciously foreign.

But then I would start to talk with someone, and immediately they knew I wasn’t a native. This was never a problem; if anything people were even friendlier when they found out I wasn’t from Germany.

After asking if I spoke English, people almost always asked if I was from England. I suppose that makes sense: English … England. And of course England is much closer to Germany than the U.S. People were often surprised when I said I was from the U.S. Here I was thinking it was so obvious where I was from, and people really didn’t know.

This happened in Spain and Italy too – people assuming I was from England.

And then in Italy and France I encountered people who thought I was German.

In a restaurant in Girona, Spain they asked whether I wanted a menu in Spanish or Catalan. They were surprised when I asked if they had an English menu – which they had, but which was not very well translated. One of the desserts was “scum of milk with fruit”. I almost tried it, just out of curiosity but I was already beyond having eaten enough.

One of my favorite encounters happened my first week in Germany. While out for a bike ride an older woman walking on a farm path stopped me. She was complaining how someone had run over the reflectors on the edge of the path. She spoke no English and my German was just starting to come along. I was wearing my team Torelli kit, riding my Torelli bike, and she asked if I was a bike racer from Italy. I thought for a moment about playing along and saying yes. But I did know how to say in German, “no, but I can wish.” We talked for quite a while -- mostly her talking, as she complained about the current state of affairs in Germany with all of the foreigners. She didn't seem to have a problem with me though -- I think because I was learning German -- and as I rode off she wished me best of luck during my stay.