I am one Hot Mess

I have made a right square fool of myself the past few days.  Yesterday I was nervous because I had to ride my bike alone all the way to my office.  Mind you, that was only my second day and my first impression of finding my way to the very back of the plant was like a rat trying to find a morsel of cheese in Texas.  ALSO keep in mind it has been like -57F in the mornings so by the time I get ANYWHERE I can't tell I have thighs anymore between them being completely frozen solid.  Its a weird feeling when you get off a bike and your legs are burning from a workout yet frozen from the ambient temperature.  So anyways, I was trying to get in the gate and apparently I was using the wrong place to badge in or something.  Well the gate guard was probably calling me an idiot in German - I didn't understand. Probably a good thing.  My reply "Um I'm American.  I don't know.  Uh. Help."  She looked at me cross-eyed, mumbled 500 more German words and then ran to grab another guard.  She walked over and showed me what I was doing wrong and I'm sure had a jolly time making fun of me the rest of the day.  Needless to say, I did navigate my way through Texas and found the office.  OH - I almost forgot, so before I even got to the ever-complicated badge in place, I wasn't exactly sure what lane I should be in so I crossed in front of this poor car like 59 times trying to get out of his way.  Such a dork.

For some reason I am also having problems going to restaurants.  Besides the whole swiss cheese episode,  there is this one Backerai that has it in for me.  I went with a coworker's spouse one time and wanted to order a cappuccino while she bought some cakes.  She rattled off 196 words (why do they say so many words for simple things) and of course I had no clue.  After standing there with a blank redneck stare, I figured out what she was saying.  Or so I thought.  After about 5 min of standing there looking foolish, I realized I had to sit down and order, can't order from the counter.  Well, today I tried to go back to this same bakery for lunch and ran into the same friggin problem.  Then I could understand they were talking about me and Englisch and Americans, etc etc.  I wanted to tell them, just wait until there are 70+ of us here!!!  =)


I realize I stick out like a sore thumb.  Doesn't bother me.  I don't really do anything to stop myself from sticking out either.  Yet.  I'll be Germanized soon enough I reckon.
 
#1  I am driving the only Jaguar in town.
#2  My scarf and matching beanie have huge multi-colored balls on the top that scream Amerikanerin
#3  I've been sporting some cammo attire
#4  I have mastered the "huh" look


Side note: my butt better be buns of steel after riding a flippin bike everywhere for a year and a half.  Watch out info-mercials.

Side note #2:  I am getting really annoyed with myself that I hear German, but my thoughts are in Spanish so I speak half German and half Spanish.  Its actually getting worse the more German I learn.  =/   Kudos to multi-lingual folks who can keep it straight!!

Adios  Servus!!