Good Encounter Leads to Joy!

When I came out of the Post Office on Senefelderstrasse, I wanted to jump up and click my heels together. But I wouldn't do that here in Stuttgart, oh no. I actually wouldn't do it in Lititz either. Well, actually, I have done that in Lititz, but only when I was somewhere where I was sure no one was watching. But, yeah, I was that tickled.




I'd gone to the Post Office to buy postcard stamps....30 postcard stamps.




So I studied up on how to say it....."I need 30 stamps for postcards to America, please". Wowowow. Here's how it goes......"Ich brauche dreisig briefmarken fur postkarten nach Amerika, bitte" Hiyo. OK. That's 9 words and I sort of know 2 of them already, so seven words. I can do this.




I kept repeating it all the 8 blocks to the PO and stopped to look again before I went in. I'm ready.




I was in line in front of 3 windows. I hoped I'd get the friendliest-looking woman to my right, or else the 2nd-friendliest-looking, man in the middle. I was mind-hurrying along the people at those windows, and hooray, I got the friendliest woman. I started to say something and she said something about "no English."




I continued on anyway, smiling big and saying,
"Ich.......brauche........dreisig......briefmarken.......fur........postkarten.....nach.......Amerika.....bitte"




It took a lot of brain power, there was nothing fluent about it, but all the words were there, YES! She smiled big, kind of laughing and said something, of course I don't know what, but I think she meant "oh yes, very good, of course!" She counted out the stamps and then said the total. I didn't understand so she turned the computer moniter around so I could see.




Then she held up her finger and walked over to the middle 2nd-friendly man and asked him something, came back and said, full of cheer, "Thirty euros, please!"




She was tickled with herself, I was tickled with myself and we were both laughing at our little triumph.




As I left, she said, "bye, bye". I turned around, said the same and put up my thumb. She responded with with her thumb and then 2nd-friendlly man cheerily called out "bye, bye" too.




So as I left the Post Office, I felt so delighted....not so much for getting the words right, that was good, ja, but for the little happy uptick in the day that this friendly woman (and 2nd-friendly man) and I shared over the buying of postcard stamps.