The lights go dark. The alarms go off. The security wall lowers around the entryways. We had just entered.
Confused faces look around and the security guards try to deal with the barrage of questions in various languages. Was ist passiert? What’s going on? [However you say that same idea in other languages].
As the brilliant and beautiful Benedikt Graf told the future international travelers at the Notre Dame safety summit, emergencies–while not likely to happen– can occur while traveling abroad.
Luckily for us, this was just a technical problem at the BMW Museum… or possibly the latest corporate guerrilla warfare marketing stunt from competitor Porsche. Either way, after hurriedly becoming acquainted with some of the exhibitions in the museum mid-lockdown before being told to leave, we were able to return the next day and see the rest of the exhibits with the lights on. But which visit is more memorable?
What this has to do with German, you may be wondering, is that I explained the situation to the front desk lady the next day using only the German language, hand gestures, and onomatopoeia for the alarm sound.
Furthermore, I feel that a major aspect of international travel is learning about oneself. And in those several minutes where we thought anything could be happening, I learned a lot about myself. And even more about my friend who was in line and chose to enter the lockdown area as the walls were descending instead of going outside. Until next time, regular readers (and there is at least one of you s/o @kate_feldman_eh).