Sometimes you get a glimpse...

I entered the Goldener Adler at 11:00 for what I thought was going to be a run of the mill business meeting.

One of our local partners on the political side of things, the retired-but-still-going-strong minister of culture, had dropped by the office last night and invited me to a meeting. He's a wonderful man, with a full gray beard and sparkly Santa Claus eyes.

And he has a habit of saying nice, completely unwarranted things about my language proficiency. I am still not sure what to think when people insist upon doing that. To me it feels completely foreign, as if he'd said, "Oh yes, and Jessica was a runway model in Paris before accepting the job here." It's like... um... hello?? You mean me me? I don't think so. It is just so insanely obvious to me that I don't speak German like a German, but like a halting, started too late to get truly fluent American.

Anyway, the guy we were meeting with is organizing a bunch of youth performances of Luther plays next year. Unfortunately for my constituents, they're all in German. Thus ended the business portion of our meeting. :-) The theater guy chain smoked and drank wine followed by schnapps, and the three of us enjoyed a rollicking conversation that flitted from theodicy to politics to philosophy and back again. In the course of the hour, I was invited to a new citizenship ceremony in December (not mine) and a performance of Lord of the Flies this weekend. In German, of course.

When I got outside the christmas decorations were going up in the market square and a street musician was playing "What a Wonderful World" on his trumpet and I was tempted to sing along because just for a moment the world WAS wonderful and shiny and the people on the street WERE really saying 'I love you' instead of just "Guten Tag." *sigh* OK, you got me, I did sing along, but only a little and not very loud.

I must have been beaming from the exquisite pleasure of good animated conversation and actual human interaction, because my doner guy beamed back at me and said I must be having a marvelous day and thanks for sharing it with him. Heh. :-)