I arrived 9pm after a total of 16 hours flight and transit time at the München Flughafen (Munich Airport) near Freising. I was actually on the same flight with Maran, who’s doing the same Masters course as me, so it’s nice to have a companion. Especially when the bloody fools at the airport lost my luggage.
He went out first to the waiting area to meet our guide. When I finished the damned paperwork, I joined him and our guide, a sprightly German girl (of Austrian-Italian parentage) who introduced herself as Maria. She has a wonderful laugh, the hearty, uninhibited sort.
She helped us get tickets for the trains that we had to take to get to our lodgings in the city. Apparently that’s far from the airport. But we had a pleasant time on the train just chatting and getting to know each other so time passed real quick.
Helps if you’re completely exhausted and had not much sleep before a 16-hour flight and not much during either.
When we got out of the trains, we had a fine time looking for our lodgings. Maria wasn’t familiar with the place it seems, but ran ahead of us in high spirits anyway. My suitcase’s wheels were making an unholy din in the dead of the night. Then she found the place.
So now I’m in bed and closing my journal and falling aslee…
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Copyright © 2001 Kenny Mah Ying Fye. Photograph by Attilio Ivan, design by Kenny Mah.
Kenny Mah believes in the good in people. He has been blogging for over ten years. No, his hands aren't tired. Yet.
Denn so ist das.
I can’t speak German to save my ass. Ja. Nein. Vielleicht. That last one was the answer to everything. Or, to be precise, Everything Else. I mention this only because I remember Maria trying to get me to speak German at all times. (“Auf Deutsch! Auf Deutsch, bitte!“) I was shy then, early on Bavarian soil. Trying to grapple with a foreign language is no slice of the proverbial cake, especially if you have this sneaking suspicion that everyone was laughing at you; surely you sound ridiculous.
Now, in later years, I regret not taking Maria up on her challenge. As it is, what meagre hold of German I had has now wilted, as time removes any relationship we might have had. Deutsch is a stranger to me, and I’m uncertain if we’ll ever understand one another again, if we ever did. Ich habe mein Herz verloren.
This much is true.