Meeting with Herr. Brand

I was invited to attend a meeting last Thursday. My host family received a letter about it in German, and gave me a simplified explanation in English. As the original letter was already quite simple, the version I received ran along the lines of "A man from the government wants to meet with us."

That was all I knew.

My host parents arrived at a local restaurant, the location of our meeting, in casual dress and proceeded to find a table for four. My host father mentioned to the waitress that we might need a larger table, as we were meeting with this mysterious Herr Brand, and we were not sure if he was bringing anyone else. The waitress gave him an odd look and said, "Herr Brand? Tonight? He's reserved a table for ten people in the back room." That wasn't all, however. She mentioned that Mr. Brand had stated specifically that there would be members of the press present at our meeting. 

Needless to say, I was starting to worry about the whole evening. I hadn't dressed up at all, and had paid absolutely no attention to my outward appearance, which would soon be plastered on some newspaper for everyone in Germany to see (this, of course, was not true; but I worried about it in any case.)

Herr Brand arrived some time alter with a man who appeared to be his secretary. Both were wearing suits and ties, and graciously shook hands with my host parents and I. They sat down and immediately began asking me questions, in a mixture of German and -when it became apparent that German would not work- broken English. The questions ranged from the simple, "Where are you from? What is San Francisco like?" to the more frightening, "Why haven't you learned German yet?  What do you think of the current German political situation? Didn't you learn -any- German before you came here?" I answered each to the best of my ability, but experienced a jolt of momentary panic each time the man turned to face me. 

About halfway through our meeting another man showed up, followed by a woman who announced herself to be a reporter from the Aachen newspaper. The man was never introduced, and said nothing for the remainder of the meeting, He simply sat in his seat and watched our discussion curiously, then left silently when we were finished.

We concluded the meeting with a picture, some final questions, and the presentation of a rather nice coffee table book to me from Herr. Brand. The book is absolutely huge, and weighs more than twice as much as the laptop I am currently using. It is filled with pictures of Berlin, the German Bundestag and its members, and varied pictures of German history and politics through the ages. It is nice, but it will be an interesting ordeal to bring it home, as I am limited to 50 lbs in my checked luggage. 

The other day my article was run in the Aachen newspaper. I cannot read it completely, but it seems to be about the CBYX/PPP program more than it is about me. The embarrassing part, however, is that -unlike usual local scholarship articles- this one covers half of a page. I have been in a newspaper before, but never with this size of an article. I guess the good part, for my lingering social anxiety, is that I can be assured that almost no one I know will stumble upon it by chance, as I know very few people in the city of Aachen.

To be absolutely fair, the meeting went better than expected, and all seemed to flow smoothly. Herr. Brand and his aides were quite nice, as was the kindly reporter who wished me a good year before returning to write up her article. 

Yeah, I'm kind of a big deal.