Another One

This is Elizabeth, a German civilian that worked in the Admin Law office. Nice "old school" phone, huh?

Behind that red partition was a desk for one of the Admin Attorneys. To the left of and behind those black binders was another Admin Law Attorney's desk. To the left of Elizabeth's desk is where my desk was when I worked in Admin Law and then behind me was a doorway that led to an office where our civilian secretaries worked.

Elizabeth's English was just about perfect though she did have a very heavy German accent but she was not very confident in her English speaking skills so she was reluctant to say words. When I'd coax it out of her, she'd be right 100% of the time. She was very shy and soft spoken. When she tried to talk to me she'd stop and say, "I don't know the word for it." but then like I said, she'd go on to say it just right. I'd ask her 10,000 questions a day about Germany and German culture. She translated documents for me, made calls for me, helped me with my German landlord (who did not speak a bit of English) . . . she was very handy to have around! She was as sweet as could be but rarely initiated any conversation between us. We had another German civilian that worked in our office and the two of them would often chit chat with each other but other than that (and trying to keep up with my constant barrage of questions), she was very quiet.

I remember one Monday I came into work and I asked her about her weekend and as if it was just an ordinary event she said, "Oh, I got married." It wasn't like a "Vegas get-away wedding" either. It was a huge wedding that she had been planning for months --but that's how little she talked to me --I had no clue she was engaged and planning a wedding. I asked her to bring pictures in and she did a few weeks later and explained all of the German traditions to me. I was so fascinated by all of it. For instance, they have two ceremonies (not necessarily on the same day either); a civil ceremony to make it lawful and a religious ceremony to make it well --religious. The tradition white wedding gown is worn for the church ceremony and the civil ceremony, which is a lot like getting married at the Justice of the Peace, you just wear ordinary clothes like --a simple suit or dress.

One time Elizabeth really helped me out was when a German dry cleaners "lost" my uniforms. I had 4 sets of BDU's (Battle Dress Uniform) so I'd put two in the cleaners and keep two then rotate them out. Well one time, for reasons I can't remember, I decided to put 3 in at one time and pay for next day service. I went the next day to get my uniforms and they did not have them ready nor could they speak English --Well, it had been my experience that when you were dealing with German businesses and ready to spend your money they spoke English quite well but let them try to cheat you or do something wrong and suddenly they just didn't know a word of English! I kept going back to the dry cleaners every day and asking for my uniforms and they'd go to the back then come up to the desk and just shrug. Since I only had one uniform to wear, I was getting quite desperate then I remembered my trump card -- ELIZABETH! The next day I went into the office and explained the problem to her and she asked me for my dry cleaning ticket. She looked at it, hopped on the phone and German was flowing out of her mouth a mile a minute. She then handed my ticket back to me and said, "You can go pick them up now." I never did find out what the problem was but sure enough, that day after work I went to pick them up and they were there.