Germany Doesn’t Suck

As previously mentioned, I’m a Germany based oral fluency examiner for Cambridge and have to both interlocute and assess different candidates a few times a year.

6 & 7 June were two of those days.

The German examining teams are divided up by state, but sometimes we have to travel to Baden-Württemberg and do exams there. That was Friday. Four of the nine of us met on the platform of the train station and took the direct 9h48 down to Karlsruhe and then a taxi o the venue, arriving at 12h15 (Deutsche Bahn was 10 minutes late). L, V, A and I ‘picnicked’ along the way like Germans do (the other three are English) – brought various types of food in plastic containers and also water and soft drinks.

The first round of exams started at 13h and went til 16h15 with a total of 37 candidates being examined for two different levels. There were ten to go after that (at a third level), so two of the examiners left and A and I stayed on to do them. We finished around 18h45 and caught a taxi back to the train station, where we had to wait an hour for the train.

Unfortunately, at that time of the day there isn’t a direct train back to my town, so we had to switch in Mannheim – which of course meant the second train was 15 minutes late. While that wasn’t a problem for me, it was a problem for A because it meant that she’d miss her train down the Mosel to her town. Luckily, being Friday, there was a later train than usual that she could catch after a forty minute wait (it would have been longer if we had been on time (but then she wouldn’t have needed it)).

A and I are not only colleagues, but also friends. We talked, laughed and keep each other company during the final train ride to keep our minds off of how DB had screwed her. We arrived at the train station in my town at 22h36 = 25 minutes late – and bade each other goodbye and I took a taxi home (while she went for a coffee) – arriving 10 minutes later. I would have stayed with her, but I was absolutely knackered. I went to bed the minute I walked in the door.

Saturday morning came and I had exams again, but luckily the early ones were in my town. V and I started at 10h and went til 12h, when I was joined by L due to the fact that V’s students were next in line to be examined (we’re not allowed to give Cambridge exams to students we’ve taught in the last three years). At 12h45, the shoe was on the other foot and V took my place and examined students from the school I teach at with L.

Then the fun began. V and I had more examining to do in WW, but I had to drive two of my school’s students back to their cars at the school and V said she’d pick me up there after she and L had finished.

No problem. I knew to look for her black A6 wagon/combi/estate

However, it didn’t show up.

Then a car appeared and she stuck her head out of it.

The SLK 200 Kompressor I posted about last week!!

I got in and said, ‘Wow, what a great car!’ and she looked a bit smug (but not in a negative way). She told me that it was ‘an expense’. She’s self-employed and let me know me that laws for self-employed people had changed and her tax advisor informed her that she needed an expense. Her other car was no longer considered one and she could no longer deduct her office at home as expenses, so she needed a new one. So, since she already had a family car for her and her kids, she bought the SLK for herself. 90% of the kilometres have to be work related, but that’s no problem for her.

Due to the threat of rain we left the top up for he first part of our journey and then she pulled over and said, ‘Should we put the top down?’ to which my eyes doubled in size and I said, ‘Yes, definitely,’ and with the press of a button, the metal roof retracted into the trunk. At that point in time, quite frankly, it didn’t matter what kind of cabriolet we were in. We had a million kilometres of sky above us and big smiles on our faces – being in a supercharged Mercedes roadster was just an added advantage.

We attempted to roar through the back roads of the WW on our way to the venue, but it we kept getting stuck behind tractors in this mountainous region. However, it didn’t matter – we were in a cabriolet.

After getting a bit lost in the village, we finally found the venue after asking a young man who spoke incredibly odd German (some kind of WW dialect, V said) for directions. We were greeted by an employee of the adult education centre (VHS) in my town that we were examining for and then we were introduced to the English teacher of the students we were there to examine. Despite the fact that she had never lived in an English speaking country, her English was excellent and her accent only had a twinge of a German accent. The exchange was good. She told us that she had done her best to prepare her students and hoped that she had done well. By her enthusiasm, I was sure that she had.

It was fun examining her eight students. Most of the students we had examined that day were business people so it was like a breath of fresh air to have teenagers to examine. What a difference!

Afterwards, V and I had a brief discussion with English Teacher. She told us that the project was a voluntary after school program and this was the first year she had done it – but loved doing it. She said that she is part of a group of English teachers in her region and had had several discussions with them about doing something similar, but they weren’t interested in it – mostly because they wouldn’t get paid for it.

V and I headed back to the car and discussing putting the top down wasn’t even a question – she did it automatically. After making to way back to the motorway, we sped down it at 150 kph – the day had turned brilliantly sunny and we were on top of the world. I rarely have the chance to ride in a very nice cabriolet, so I looked down my nose at the peasants driving the EuroBoxes we were passing – and enjoyed every minute of it.

I found myself getting a bit sad as we left the motorway, but just as we got onto the divided highway that leads back to the city she gunned it under the bridge and the supercharged engine let out a growl that was music to my ears. I said to her, ‘That’s a great sound,’ to which she smiled and smugly said, ‘It sure is. You should hear it in tunnels.’

She dropped me off at my place of employment because both my bike and the school car I needed the following Monday were parked and we said our farewells – knowing that we’d be seeing each other a week later for more exams. Considering my alternatives to return to The J Lair, I opted to pedal. My normal EuroBox Peasant status could hold off for a couple days.