Ich Verstehe nicht

I was lying in my bed in dreary damp Ireland, and the next thing (after a pleasant red-eye flight with Lufthansa), I’m in lovely sunny Germany. Myself and my wife and 4 kids landed in Frankfurt and were collected and brought to Offenbach, just outside the city. We had an action packed 4 days, initially in Frankfurt, Offenbach and surrounding areas. The main reason for our visit was to attend a wedding of a close family friend and for this, we spent Friday evening, Saturday and half of Sunday down in a lovely village called Assmannshausen in the heart of the wine-growing region of the Rhine.

I was feeling awfully guilty about my lack of German language, and I tried to get my apology (Entschuldigung, Ich verstehe nicht) out as often as possible, but I found that most Germans were too busy apologising to me for their poor English to notice! Two things I’d like to point out here:

I was the one who had arrived in their country without the language and
the vast majority of them actually spoke English very well!

We really enjoyed our trip, spent time with some lovely people, made new friends and saw a little of the old and the new side of Germany. By the end of it all, the main thing I didn’t quite understand, was what I’m doing living in a mess of a country like Ireland!