15 March: Deutsch Dinner

My friend Shannon and I went together tonight to the IWC’s first-ever German dinner. Every month or so they sponsor a language-themed dinner at a local restaurant – so far they’ve had a couple of French nights but this was, amazingly, the first German night. We were late because I was meeting Shannon at her apartment; I got there and rang her bell, but apparently the bell wasn’t working because no one answered. I didn’t have her phone number so I couldn’t call her on my cell phone. I waited around for a few minutes, called John to see if he could look up the number, but he wasn’t home yet, and then finally, making sure no one was around to observe me, I climbed over the gate and went up to her front door. I felt so guilty – I just knew that as soon as I hopped the fence, there would be a spotlight on me. Fortunately, nothing happened. Shannon was surprised to see me at her front door, and even more surprised to hear that the bell didn’t work!

It took us a good half-hour on the U2 to get to our stop, and then we got a little lost trying to find the restaurant, so we were a good 45 minutes late. We ate at a place called Riedsee in the Möhringen area – Shannon said her family had eaten there several times while they were staying at SI-Suites. It was quite good – my maultaschen was delicious. We joined Dorothee (British), Anne M. (British), Ula (German), and Judy (British). Everyone else was practically fluent in German so Shannon and I were at a bit of a loss, but we did okay and managed to stick to German throughout the entire evening. Shannon raved about my German afterwards. She’s been here just over a year and wants to take more German classes, so I told her to have patience; it just takes time!