Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?

One day over my ridiculously extended two-month long winter break, my phone rang while I was on my way home from work.  As I always do, I answered it.  On the other end was my roommate, proudly informing me that she had come up with a comeback to some snarky comment I had made over AIM several days before.  We all know this feeling, you respond with something less than clever and then within minutes (or days) come up with the best comeback that you could have used, and now there is just a great one-liner waiting in the back of your head for the next time you live out the exact same situation.

In Germany, this process is not only much slower but much more mundane as well.  It’s not snappy comebacks that I finally come up days later, it’s how to politely order a meal.  It’s not the best your mom joke in the world that I come up with ten seconds after the moment has passed, it’s me finally realizing several days later what that guy on the train was asking me when he asked for a lighter.

Even stranger, the imaginary conversations in my head are increasingly in German.  I will envision (for whatever reason) a normal, banal interaction in Grinnell, such as going to the post office, and my entire imaginary part is conducted in German.  I can only hope, for the confusion of all, that this trend continues in real life when I actually do return to Grinnell.  Or in the rest of my life.  My German skills are far from stellar, but it’s becoming so automatic.  Perhaps this is the path to fluency.  I suppose I’ll find that out in a few months.