Coming from and going to Frankfurt Airport

Travelling in a foreign country is always interesting. I’ve just come back from Frankfurt. I state in advance that I don’t know Germany very well, I’ve been just in Frankfurt airport and its surroundings a few times, but I think that also the airports are interesting. They are microcosms where you can find whatever.

 

I landed in the evening, so I decided to eat only a sandwich for dinner. I was tired, also speaking English was difficult to me – I don’t speak German at all – so I tried to express a very easy concept “Could you warm up that sandwich?”, but words didn’t come easy to me.

And then, the barman, getting my impasse, asked me:

“Where are you from? What language do you speak?”

“Italian!”

“Oh, well, what is the problem!?” – he told me in a perfect Italian. And starting from that moment our conversation went on in Italian.

“Are you Italian too?”

“No, I’m from Morocco”

“And you speak Italian!”

“Yes, I’ve learnt it here, in Germany, because I attended an Italian community”

Wow, I was surprised.

“And which other languages do you speak?” – I was so curious.

“Oh, well, I don’t know, let me say, French, of course, Arabic, Berbero" - (I'm not able to translate it, but it's the local and most original language in Morocco), -  "Spanish, German… and a bit of English, but no, I don’t like English very much, England is so distant from me and from my culture….”

 

“What are you saying? You speak English better than me!!”

I went away thinking that in Germany a barman speaks 6 languages, whereas in Italy you are cool if your English level is a low-intermediate.
The problem is that Italian companies demand their applicants speak English very well, if they strive for good positions (and even not), but few applicants is able to guarantee this. Is this the reason why there is the crisis? Is it due to insufficient knowledge of foreign languages?
The Italians, how strange are they.

And then, I had to go to my business meeting, the morning after.  So I took a taxi.
The Germans, how strange are they. So tidy, so respectful of the rules, but in their highways they have no speed limits, they drive in a foolish and wild way.
I’m still alive, fortunately.

At the end of the meeting I took a taxi again, sharing it with two colleagues who belong to other companies. All we talked to the driver in English, of course, because none of us spoke German. As long as we discovered that the cabby was 100% Italian. He was an immigrant. Who, obviously, spoke both German and English, of course. Wonderful!

Taxi drivers are often immigrants, abroad. In Belgium, UK and Germany, at least. And they speak at least 3 languages. In Italy, if they aren’t immigrants, they speak just their dialect. But, in fact, I hardly ever take a taxi in Italy.

And finally I arrived at the airport again. I immediately went to the toilet to put on my gym shoes instead of my elegant ones. What a sensation of freedom!
It was a very hot day and my feet hurt. I refreshed my face.
Close to me, a Muslim girl was doing the same. She was pouring her face, her arms, her hair. She smiled. At the end, she wore her black burqa again, you could have seen just her eyes, and she went out, silently.