Lufthansa: Nostalgia

My appetite for speaking German is like a warm apple crisp in your belly. When I get the opportunity to speak, it is a feeling akin to hugging a loved one. It is so familiar and comforting that my tongue itches to form words even when I have no one to talk to. After nearly a decade without any formal language education, my grammar has taken a sharp turn for the worse, and when I’m not concentrating I can hear my accent slip. However, having grown up with this sound and these words around me, something as small as asking the flight attendant for creamer is so exciting that I have been staring this poor woman down since she started trundling her cart down the first class aisle. I can’t remember the word for creamer, so I ask for milk—but it doesn’t matter, because this small exchange is like discovering a book I won’t be able to put down; I need to advance a little more, but I can sense the reservoir of fulfillment burgeoning beneath the surface.