I had a typical “welp, I’m still in Germany” day yesterday.

I was making my yogi tea (the tea that comes with an uplifting message attached to the tea bag) when a co-worker joined me in the kitchen. I don’t know this woman well, so I decided to strike up a conversation.

The yogi tea message is in German.

me: “Hi! Can you help me translate this? It’s my positive message for the day!”
co-worker: Looks at tea “It is religious, it is something from the church. It’s difficult. I’m sorry, I can’t translate it.”
Co-worker exits stage left.

A little later that afternoon, I had a meeting to discuss a German pension plan that I’ll now take part in. Again, this is with another co-worker who I don’t know well, so I tried to chit chat.

me: “Your conference room is so much nicer than ours! It’s great!”
co-worker: Enters room with a stack of papers and a German-English dictionary “I’m sorry, my English is not that good”

We went on to have a conversation about the German pension plan, which really just involved her looking up words in her dictionary (woman, use the translate app!)

Then I had to sign a paper. It was another “I’m sorry, this isn’t in English.”

She also asked me, “Do you plan to stay in Germany until you’re 65?”. I should have just said, “Yes! Of course! I totally have the next 30 years of my life planned out and I intend on having a house with a garden and riding my bike everywhere!” (oh wait, that does sound nice…)

And, “When you’re 65, do you want the money in one lump sum, or in monthly payments?” Hmmm, let me ask my future self and get back to you.