Crash!

Last night I went with my friend Hally to a meeting of the International club. It was in Kreuzberg, yet another one of the super-hip areas in Berlin, at a place called Crash!





There I made an ass of myself speaking bad German and failing to control my "dome sweat".

Speaking a foreign language is like playing a board game in which the rules are so complex that you can never make a *single* move without violating them and no one wins in the end.

Speaking a foreign language is like trying to run underwater.

Speaking a foreign language is like being the person who is so uncoordinated that he is always picked last for dodgeball and then being expected to do a gymnastics floor routine at the Olympics.

Speaking a foreign language is like going to the drug store for fifteen embarrassing cures and having the cashier do a price check on each one of them.

Speaking a foreign language is like failing a sobriety test.

Speaking a foreign language is like being retarded, except that you know you're retarded.

Speaking a foreign language is like being asked at the last minute to teach a class on quantum physics when all you know about physics is what you learned from watching Nova.

Speaking a foreign language is like when you're walking down the street and someone else is coming towards you and when you try to avoid them, you both move in the same direction so you're still on a collision course, then you both switch to the opposite side, then you both switch back, then finally you both almost bump into each other. It's like that process sustained for weeks.

Oh, and living in a foreign country is like it would be if you woke up one day and all the holidays you care about, including birthdays, didn't exist anymore. And instead of those holidays, there were holidays that deliberately excluded you.

Happy Halloween!