I had a good conversation on the phone with Chuck, the director, or so I
thought, and the owner of the school whose name was Karin.
Chuck was direct and to the point, but sounded to have a good sense of
humor. Karin was the owner of the school
and from a small town in Austria. She
seemed like a nice lady and was offered the job after about a 45 minute
conversation. I had bought a Eurail pass
with 5 round trip trips that I had yet to use.
They wanted me to start as soon as possible and decided to go check out
the school within the next few days.
I was excited to start my job as an English teacher. I called a few of my American friends to tell
them the news. I was supposed to head
out the following day. My friends, Joe
and Joe, Corin and Joshua insisted on having a few beers to send me off. I still hadn’t packed yet but thought I could
do it later. I had already had a
reservation for the train for an early morning 6:30 departure. We went out to our favorite pub for dinner
and a few beers. A few beers lead to
several more beers until late in the evening.
Before I knew it, it was around 1 a.m. and I still had to go back to the
apartment to pack for my trip.
I woke up with enough time to spare. I had to roll my suitcase to the main train
station which was a good 25 minute walk.
I was still feeling the beers from the night before and never really got
any sleep. I was also struggling with
some sort of stomach virus at the time which had been hanging around for the
past few days. It was one of those
stomach bugs where you didn’t want to turn any corners too quickly if you know
what I mean. I had an 11 hour train ride
ahead of me and was overcome at time by a cold sweat and a churning stomach the
entire trip. Not to mention the
dehydration from the beer and lack of sleep.
I arrived at Goeppingen Hauptbahnhof around 5:30 p.m.
and was met by Chuck, the school director.
He was older than what I pictured.
He appeared to be in his late forties with a flat top. His hair was gray and looked more like he was
in the Army. He seemed friendly and my
first impression was that he may not be too bad to work for. Karin was with him. She was quite a bit younger, about mid thirties
with long blond hair and on the stout side.
I thought it must be all the German meat and potatoes. She had a friendly glow and more of a
motherly side to her. Chuck and Karin
were a ‘couple’ which was clear to see. Chuck
obviously had an upper hand in the relationship. That was apparent from some of the jokes he
made with Karin. It maybe was just his
military/conservative appearance.
We
went straight to the apartment where I was to live. That was included in my salary of 14 German
Marks per class hour taught. I had no
idea if that was good or bad since I didn’t know what the cost of living was
like. My measure of salary was, how many
beers does it buy? I had a fully
furnished apartment that I would share with one other teacher and one other
teacher to be hired as soon as they found someone. I got a quick tour of the apartment which had
everything I needed. Two bedrooms in the
apartment and a third bedroom separate upstairs from the apartment. Chuck said, drop your bags and head on across the street for class. He wanted me to sit in on his classes and be
introduced to the students. I was
thinking, it would be nice just to stretch my legs a bit and unpack. But I had to head over in 10 minutes. My stomach was still rumbling and the sweat
flashes were still there. I was still
going on about 3 hours of sleep that I managed on the train. I was dead tired and not quite sure if my
stomach was going to be ok, but I pulled myself together and headed over.
When I got over to the school, which was slightly less than
10 minutes before the start of the first class, I was informed that I was late
according to Chuck. Now I thought to
myself, is this guy serious or is he joking.
I was really too tired to give it much thought. I was given a quick run-down on the classes
that were scheduled for the evening.
There were 5 classes that lasted 45 minutes. All were small groups of less than 10 per
class and were mainly conversational.
The former owner had written the textbook that went from beginner level
all the way up through advanced. Chuck
was going to lead the class discussion, except tonight he was going to
introduce me and let me talk about who I was and where I was from. This was a bit more than I expected. I was hoping for more of just a short hello
and then kick back and watch. I just had
an 11 hour train ride, not to mention a night out on the town in Prague with my
friends. My stomach was still feeling
the effects of the stomach bug. I wasn’t
sure if I would need to make an emergency exit at some point in the evening.
The first class came in.
It was a group of about 6 or so mid level students. I said hello to the students as they walked
in. My first impression was that they
were a little apprehensive and not really too friendly. Chuck started the class with a goofy joke to
break the ice as I sat there with all eyes on the two of us. My initial few weeks were still in the trial
phase. It was agreed upon that I would
get paid, but still be considered to be temporary until I was officially
offered the job. So out of the gate, I
felt Chuck watching every move that I made and was judging every response in
the classroom. Chuck made his
introduction and then it was my turn to give myself presentation, where I was
from, what I did in the U.S. and how I just travelled from Prague. It was funny how every class that I told I
just came from Prague, I had a blank stare from all the students. It was always a short delay until they said,
ah Prague. Like I totally butchered the
pronounciation. That would also happen
whenever I said this in German as well.
Somehow, they couldn’t understand my accent. Now that I think about it, for years later
living in Europe when I would speak German and say where I was from, the same
delay would come after I said Amerika, in German…it was ah Amerika. This was about 90 percent of the time. They would often say, huh? Australia? I would respond, no Amerika. Then, ah Amerika. Isn’t that what I just said? I would think to myself. I think the other 10 percent of the time,
they just didn’t feel like confirming what I had just said.
It
was one class after another with a 10 minute break in between each class. Always the same routine, who is this guy
expression from the students as they walked in, by brief introduction from Chuck
and then it was my brief history and questions from the students afterwards. The classes were a mix of bored housewives
looking to get out of the house for the evening to the business professional
looking to advance their career with better English. I could already see that the Germans were a
bit reserved and hard to get them to open up.
There were a few students who enjoyed the conversation which is who I
tended to focus on to avoid the uncomfortable silence. Overall, I could tell this was going to be a
fun job since I love talking with people and learning about what they do and
where they are from. I found this
to be the best way to learn about the culture, what to do
see and what food to eat. Nothing I
could imagine would be a better way to dive into the local culture than to work
as an English teacher.
After going through 5 classes of the same routine, I was
ready to call it a night and head to bed.
I was invited by Chuck and Karin to meet them at a nearby restaurant to
discuss how things went. As tired as I
was, I couldn’t say no to good food and talking about the evening. We went to a nearby Lokal, or small, family
run restaurant/pub. I ordered some
schweinefleisch and spaetzle from the recommendation of Chuck and Karin, along
with a half liter of the local hefeweizen.
I soon realized that the German hefeweizen was much stronger than the
beer I was accustomed to in Prague and could quickly feel a buzz coming on from
my first half of a glass. We sat and
talked about the students and class structure and my feedback as to what I
thought went well and didn’t go well. We
talked also about my background and where I was from. They said I would be living with Chris, who
was the senior teacher at the school who was from England. They exchanged glances upon mentioning his
name with a bit of laugh. I was already
thinking, what is this all about? I
would soon find out for myself.
I felt more of a
sense of a family, nurturing feel from my new bosses. They seemed nice and caring and thought this
seemed like a good fit. I felt I was on
my way to fulfilling my dream of living and working in Germany. All I had to do is be myself, work hard and prove
to Chuck and Karin that I was a good fit for the job.
It was getting close to midnight and already through my
third beer when we decided to call it a night.
It was Friday and I was looking forward to sleeping in. To my surprise, Chuck insisted on a 8:30
meeting at the school to discuss teaching material and class organization for
the upcoming week. Not wanting to look
bad, I eagerly agreed to meet them bright and early over at the school. My real thoughts were, shit I am tired and
would much rather get caught up on some sleep and unpack.
To no surprise, I was too tired to fall asleep. It may sound strange, but I can never sleep
right away when I am overly exhausted or in a strange place. I got up early enough to shower but had
nothing to eat but a protein bar, banana and some water that I had brought
along on my trip. I was still tired but
wanted to look upbeat for my early morning meeting. When I arrived, I was about 5 minutes early
since it was a short walk from across the street. I was greeted by Chuck and Karin with how did
you sleep? Then, Chuck commented on ‘if
you are on time, you are late.’ I
thought to myself, don’t look irritated, smile and keep your mouth shut. I really wasn’t sure if I should jokingly say
something back or say nothing at all. I
chose to keep my mouth shut.
We went over the class structure like who was in each class,
what level they were, what they liked and disliked. The school had around 250 students Monday
through Saturday. We went over teaching
material available for the next couple of hours. The material included flash cards, games and
books on conversational topics and the like.
I was also told there are a couple of private students that I would take
over for Saturdays and that they would be there shortly. Now at this point, I am starving with no
apparent break for breakfast or lunch on the schedule. There were two students back to back. One was a manager at a local business and the
other was a 13 year old boy who was struggling with his English lessons in
school.
The classes went smoothly, more of the same old
routine. Just a brief intro and an
awkward time trying to have a conversation with someone who would prefer not to
talk.
The classes finally ended around 1 p.m. and I was still
feeling the effects of my long trip. I
was starving and needed to go to the store to get something to eat and stock up
for the next few days. I had to
interrupt Chuck and Karin to say that I needed to do some shopping and cut
away. Chuck told me that I had better
hurry because the stores on Saturday in Germany all close at 2 p.m. He said all stores are closed on Sunday
too. I felt a sort of panic rush through
my stomach. I didn’t want to eat 3 meals
a day on Sunday at a restaurant and had to get to the store before it
closed. Luckily, a grocery store was
about 3 blocks away from my apartment. I
set out for my first visit in a German grocery store. My first impression was that everything was
so much smaller. The parking lot was
only large enough for maybe two dozen cars and inside the store, the isles were
all much narrower. It kind of made me
feel a little claustrophobic. I looked
to grab the basics to get me by. Water, yogurt,
bread and lunch meat. I was just mainly
trying to stock up on basic sandwich stuff for now until I could get more
settled. I felt a bit stressed since the
clock was ticking and I knew they were getting close to closing. You could feel the same tension with the
Germans who were shopping in the store as well.
They all seem to act as if other people weren’t there. I noticed they acted as if I were invisible and
would run me over if I didn’t get out of their way. The same went for the line at the check- out
when one woman apparently didn’t see me and cut in line in front of me. I had given the person in front of me a
reasonable distance and the other women just squeezed her way in between. I thought, she really must be in a hurry and
didn’t say anything. She acted as if I
wasn’t even there.
I got back to the apartment and finally met Chris. He was a short, round man in his late forties
with slicked back medium length snow white hair with a goatee. He had a healthy red glow to his cheeks and
smelled a little like booze from the night before, or was it from this
morning? I wasn’t sure. He introduced himself and said welcome to the
English School and just make yourself at home in a thick British accent. He seemed like a nice, warm hearted guy and
looked a bit like Santa Claus. Right
away, I felt that I could get along with the guy. We talked for a while about where we were
from . He had been there teaching in
Germany for over a year now and didn’t mind the job. However, I sensed there was something he
wasn’t telling me about the owners of the school.
This
was the first time I was able to see the apartment in daylight. It was in a quiet neighborhood directly
across the street from the school. It
was an upstairs 3 bedroom apartment, directly above the apartment from Chuck
and Karin. I was an older building with
wooden, crickety staircase. As I walked
in to the building, I had to pass by Chuck and Karin’s front door to their
living room. Above their door, there was
a clear glass window, which they I am sure could see me walking up the stairs
to my apartment. The stairs made such a
loud squeek and the echo in the hallway was easily heard in their
apartment. My apartment was small, but
comfortable. There was a separate living
room with dining table, couch and t.v.
The kitchen had a small breakfast table, old gas stove and small
refridgerator. We had all the pots, pans
and dishes that we needed to cook, but no dishwasher. The bathroom was small, with a hanging 50
gallon water heater/tank. My bedroom had
a double sized bed with fluffy down
comforter and big fluffy goose feather pillow. There was a large, separate standing closet
that was plenty big enough for my two suitcases and my clothes. I had a large window that faced the school
and I could see the main cross street from my bedroom window. There was nothing going on out on the
street. A car would pass by
occasionally, but nothing like the city life of what I had in Prague. This was as quiet and peaceful as it gets.
By this time, Chuck had knocked once on the front door and
came waltzing in to the apartment. He
asked if I found the store alright and wanted to go over some important things
about the apartment. He walked straight
into my bedroom to explain the radiator.
He said it was an energy efficient radiator and never to adjust the
settings. He walked into the bathroom
and gave me the same advice on the water heater in the bathroom. I only heated the water for about 4 hours in
the middle of the night. Once that hot
water was gone, you were shit out of luck.
You would have to take a cold shower if the warm water was gone. Once again, he said, don’t adjust the
settings. He even explained the remote
for the t.v. I really thought this was
all pretty self explanatory, but let him talk.
He said dinner was going to be at 6 and that we would be going out
afterwards. He extended the same
invitation to Chris, but he said he had already made plans for the
evening. By now it was close to 4 p.m.
and I had a few hours to sit down and take in my new surroundings.
At about 10 minutes
to 6, I walked downstairs to Chuck and Karin’s apartment not to be late
according to Chuck’s standards. Karin
had made spaghetti for dinner. It was
nice to have a home cooked meal instead of eating out in a restaurant on any
given day. Karin mentioned she was glad
they had found me and was eager to mold me into a great teacher. We had a nice dinner and good
conversation. We talked about how Karin
recently purchased the school from Allen, who was a British born man who
founded the school some 20 years ago. He
was still working as a teacher at the school part time and still had some say as
to how the school was run and who they hired.
I would be joining him in some of his classes in the coming week to
observe his teaching style. We finished
dinner after a few hours and Chuck decided he and I should go out for a night
out on the town in Goepingen to show me some of the local pubs. Since I didn’t know my way around or have
anyone to hang out with I thought it may be fun.
Chuck
and I started out at a hard rock pub called Treffpunkt. It was a bit more of a biker, heavy metal bar
where they played the likes of Iron Maiden, AC DC and the like. We sat at the bar enjoying some of the local
beers. I learned Chuck was raised the
son of an Army colonel and had moved around quite a bit as a kid. He still had the military flat top. He seemed to me as if he came from money and
was a bit on the spoiled side. He seemed
a bit demanding of his girlfriend Karin and seemed intent of always getting his
way from the short time I knew him. He
mentioned that he was from Texas where he spent the larger part of his time
when he was in the U.S. He and Karin
had met in Germany and decided to move for a while to England, where they both
studied to get their teaching certification or TEFL as it is better known
as. About five beers into the evening, Chuck
asked out of the blue if I smoked pot.
It was as if he wanted to get me a little drunk to see if he could get
me to volunteer any personal information
out of me. I still felt as if he was
watching and judging my every move. We
talked more about Chris, who had a bit of a drinking dependency. He expressed that they weren’t too happy with
his drinking before classes and were looking to let him go. Chuck even asked me my thoughts on Chris and
asked if I had seen him drinking in the apartment. Of course, I said nothing not to get the guy
in any more
trouble. Not that
drinking in his spare time was a bad thing, I just started to get the feeling
that there were some house rules that we were to live by as long as we lived in
the apartment they gave us as part of the compensation package.
The following Monday I was to sit in on all the classes
throughout the evenings to be introduced to the rest of the students. All the classes went the same, more
introductions and Chuck’s lame jokes throughout the class. I almost felt as if he wanted us to be a
couple of comedians. Kind of like a
modern day Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
I hated sitting there and couldn’t wait to have the class to myself
without him watching over me.
After each class, it was more of the same feedback session
with Chuck and Karen. What went well and
what could have been better. Karin said she was going to split up the classes
that Chuck had been teaching with me. I
was to get about 30 teaching hours a week.
I was also going to go to teach off site 2 days a week on Tuesdays and
Thursdays at the Berufs Bildungs Gemeinschaft or referred to as the B.B.G. This was a state sponsored school to train
women to learn valuable skills to get them a job and off welfare. The women were all welfare recipients and
were somewhat difficult. Chuck and Karin
cautioned me that this was not going to be an easy task. Classes were about twenty women each class
aged from 20 to 40 years of age. They
mentioned that they were somewhat difficult and had already gone through a few
other teachers who didn’t last. They
weren’t to motivated and for lack of better words, a group of bitchy women who
would eat me alive if I let them walk over me.
I was not too excited about started off with such a rough group. I was a bit nervous and didn’t feel
comfortable knowing that I was going to be teaching such a large group of
hostile women. Karin met with me during
some down time during the morning on Monday before my first class. She showed me the notes of what she had been
going over and handed me the text books.
She was going to drop me off Tuesday morning around 8 a.m. and let me
wing it. Talk about being scared.
I don’t think I got more than 3 hours of sleep Monday night
before my first big day at the B.B.G.
That morning, I could hardly eat anything. I met Karin downstairs and we headed on over
to. It was to be 4 classes each of 45
minutes per lesson.
It was about a 10 minute drive over to the B.B.G. and my
stomach was in knots and I could feel myself already starting to sweat. I was wearing a sweater since it was a cold
day and also, not to show any sweat rings on my first day of class. I was a nervous wreck. Karin went over a few more things about the
class. She said one thing that caught me
off guard a bit. She said that the women
aren’t worth my time outside of the classroom.
They all have emotional hang-ups of one sort or the other and that I
should not consider any relationship outside the classroom with any of
them. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to
give me some sound advice or if maybe she was a little on the jealous
side. I had thought from the beginning
that maybe she was a bit on the flirtatious side, but I really wasn’t interested
even if she were single.
We arrived at the school and Karin wanted to introduce me to
the administrative staff and also offered to introduce me to the class before
taking off. It was nice to at least not
have her watching me like a hawk in the classroom, unlike Chuck.
We walked into the classroom and I felt a knot in my throat
once all 20 pairs of eyes were glaring at me.
It didn’t seem to be like a very upbeat class. I quickly scanned the room and saw a diverse
group from early twenties to early forties.
The older women I noticed all seemed to have the same hair style. It was short, over the ears, somewhat spiked
hairdo. It reminded me of the hair style
Mr. Spock on Star Trek wore, except they had a bit more of a spike to it. The hair color some of them had was a fiery
red or burgundy. The glasses they wore
were the small, Benjamin Franklin style which seemed to be the in style. There were some attractive younger girls in
the classroom, but they all had the same cold hard look. None of them struck me as anyone I would want
to meet and have a friendly chat with. Karin
didn’t need to worry about me hooking up with any of these ladies. They all seemed so plain looking and
lifeless. So there I was, under the
spotlight. Karin gave me a smile as to
say good luck and left.
My
lesson plan was pretty simple. I wanted
to do tell about my background and go around the room and have each student
tell a little about themselves and why they wanted to learn English. I estimated this would take the bulk of the 3
hour session and I would be an easy day.
I went first, talking about Oregon and my time in Prague. When I said now it’s your turn, I heard a
grumbling throughout the class. One of
the older students with spiked burgundy hair said, ‘we did this for the last
teacher and we are not going to do this again.’
There was a general agreement from the faces of the rest of the
students. They said, we will tell your
our names, age and status. So, around
the class they went, one at a time. I
could feel my heart starting to beat a little faster and the temperature in the
classroom rise. I thought , this is not
going as planned, what do I do now? So
one by one, they said their name age and marital status and then on to the
next. This took up about 10 minutes, if
that. When the last girl finished I had
another 2 hours and forty five minutes to kill and nothing planned. Just me sitting there with the clock slowly
ticking. You could hear a pin drop. I sat and squirmed at my desk a bit with all
eyes on me, thinking this job isn’t for me.
I could feel the sweat bead up on my forehead. Luckily I had worn a sweater to hide how much
I had actually been sweating underneath.
I was sweating as if I just ran a marathon. I sat there for what seemed to be an
eternity, with nothing to say. Suddenly,
through the glass window to the hallway, I saw a girl in a thick navy blue ski
jacket slowly wandering towards the door of the classroom. She opened the door and said ‘hi, sorry I’m a
little late.’ She kind of laughed and
made her way to her desk. That was
actually the first time I had seen a German girl smile, or even laugh for that
matter. She asked the group what we were
doing. She could obviously feel the
tension in the air. Someone in the back
said in German that we were doing the same old introduction crap. She introduced herself and started telling me
about where she lived. Her name was
Sandra and obviously didn’t give a crap what the other’s thought of her. She was dressed in farmer’s overalls and with
her ski jacket, looked like she was ready for the North Pole. I noticed a diamond stud in her nose and jet
black dyed long hair. She was an average
looking girl, but had a carefree glow about her. She asked me where I was from , so I gave my story once again, not caring about
the fact I had already done so. I was
desperate to kill any time that I could.
By this time I had calmed down some and asked the class what had been
done with the other teacher. Another
girl spoke up and started giving me the run down. I
could see other girls rolling their eyes in disgust. It was clear there was some animosity among
the students. I decided to ignore the
majority of the class who wanted nothing to do with me and focus on the two
students who were interested in a conversation.
I just wanted to kill time and get the hell out of there.
I never thought I would make it the whole session, the
thought of walking out the door that first twenty minutes almost became
reality. I seriously was ready to throw
in the towel on the teaching idea and my dream of working in Germany. As the students were walking out the door,
Sandra was hanging back. She came up to
my desk and asked what else I had seen so far of Europe. She asked if I had ever been to
Mallorca. I said, no, I had never heard
of it. Where is it? She said it was a Spanish island in the
Mediterranean and had lived there for 6 years.
She said it was a beautiful place where it was always sunny and
warm. She said she used to surf and did
some scuba diving there and that she thought I would love it there and check it
out sometime. She smiled as she dropped
a piece of paper on my desk and quickly made her way out the door.
Little did I know, that calling that number would take my
life into an entirely different direction and turn into a roller coaster ride
of an experience to come. Within two
months, I was on a plane heading to this little Spanish island called
Mallorca. I had no idea where it
actually was or what to expect. The
experience I was about to have would change my life forever.
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