So, it took me officially 13 months to find my German nemesis: a 5-year old girl and her cat Speedy.

This little girl’s mother runs the barn where I ride Dorian, the horse. They live in an apartment on the premises, connected to the barn. What this means for me: she is always there. She never goes away. Ever.

Ultimately, I know these stories are really only amusing to myself. However, some day in the far away future, I know I am going to look back on this German experience and say, “And then there was that little girl at the barn. Man, she was annoying. I can’t remember what she used to do, but trust me, she was a piece of work.” Well, now I don’t have to worry about forgetting!

There have just been too many interesting/questionable encounters with my nemesis for me to pass up the opportunity to solidify her, forever, in electronic history. For ease of reading, I have translated all of our conversations into English. There is only one key phrase that you  need to know: What is your name again? (Wie heiβt du noch mal?)

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Pretty early on, my nemesis approached me and initiated conversation:

NEMESIS: What’s your name?

ME: Trysta

NEMESIS: What’s your name again? (Wie heiβt du noch mal?)

ME: Trysta. What’s your name?

NEMESIS: Florence. (Insert French accent here. Her mom must have known at birth that she was going to need a sweet, French name to soften the blow of her over-sized attitude.)

ME: Pretty.

NEMESIS: What’s your name again?

ME: Trysta.

NEMESIS: Why are you called that?

ME: My parents gave the name to me. Why are you called Florence?

NEMESIS: My parents gave the name to me.

ME: Super, we are agreed then.

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No joking, two days later I am at the barn again and here she comes, hauling Speedy the cat, who is doing everything in his power to escape the death clamp she has on his head.

NEMESIS: What’s your name again? (Wie heiβt du noch mal?)

ME: Hi Florence. I’m called Trysta.

NEMESIS: What’s your name again?

ME: I already told you many times. Trysta.

At this, she leaves me alone and I go about my business. After I am done riding, as I am walking down the driveway, I hear Speedy’s desperate meow. I glance out of the corner of my eye, treading ever so carefully over crunchy gravel, trying not to attract her attention. She is playing alone on her bike, forcing Speedy to drive. I manage to pass her without being seen, but before I can escape, she inquires loudly:

NEMESIS: What’s your name again? (Wie heiβt du noch mal?)

As I am walking, I turn to look at her. There is no way I am going to scream my name down the driveway. The people here already think I am half mute-half idiot. I’d rather not prove them completely right, at least on the idiot part. She really wants to know, though.

NEMESIS: Wie heiβt du noch mal?

NEMESIS:  (now she is yelling, instead of chasing me with Speedy and the bike, which I am thankful for) WIE HEIβT DU NOCH MAL?!

NEMESIS: WIE HEIβT DU NOCH MAL?!

I think to myself: Maybe if you said: Wie heiβen Sie noch mal? (the polite way a child should talk to an adult), I would turn around.

NEMESIS: WIE HEIβT DU NOCH MAL?!

I walk out of sight and climb into the peace and quiet of my vehicle. If she was any older than 5, I would have given her the finger.

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Now, it’s a Sunday morning. I am happy to be the first, and only person, at the barn. Mind you, it’s around 9:45am. As I am gathering my tack, I find Speedy in the tack room, where he shouldn’t be. I shoo him out and two minutes later the mom/barn manager is hanging out of her apartment window. She looks a wreck.

MOM: Did you ring?

ME: Ahhhhh…no. (Speedy must have walked on the “doorbell” button in the tack room. Great, here they go thinking I am an idiot again!)

I put down my things and turn to find my nemesis, suddenly, standing right there. She is wearing a long sweatshirt, no pants, and no shoes. Looking back at the manure-covered path she just walked to get to me, I wonder to myself if she is going to climb back into her bed with those bare feet.

NEMESIS: Come.

ME: (confused) Does your mom want to talk to me?

NEMESIS: What?

ME: Does your mom want to talk to me?

NEMESIS: (taking my hand) We have to find the key.

ME: What?

NEMESIS: We have to find the key. Come.

ME: (dropping her hand) No, I have to ride Dorian now.

She stands there for a minute as I walk away, and then runs off.  I don’t see her the rest of the day. Clearly, she hadn’t lost her key. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if her mom locked her out while she had the chance.

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This time, my nemesis has Speedy and a little friend with her. I am cleaning off Dorian and the three of them suddenly appear (Think: the butler in the movie “Mr. Deeds”. It happens this way every time.) at Dorian’s rear end.

NEMESIS: Can we put Speedy in Dorian’s tail?

ME: Noooo…I don’t think…

NEMESIS: (already sauntering off, with her girlfriend and cat, like they were 13-year olds at the mall who just saw someone “uncool”) Because Dorian is the spookiest horse.

Honestly, she could have also been asking me to put Dorian’s tail on Speedy. I’m not totally sure because I was hung up on the word “tail”. You see, in German, the word has several meanings: tail, and an inappropriate male body part that, in English, starts with C and shouldn’t be used by a 5 year old. Unfortunately, I encounter the inappropriate meaning more often than “tail”.

Regardless, she obviously already knew the justification behind my answer. Why did she even ask? She was testing me, I know it! Maybe I should have let her, just to see what was going to happen. Twit.

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I haven’t been back to the barn since the tail incident. We’ll see what clever schemes she has come up with for next time….

I don’t have any pictures of Florence or Speedy, because that would require talking to her. Cute baby cow will have to do!

…finally!

Rejection letters never come in big envelopes, right? We hope…

It reads:

Approval document for winter semester 2012/2013

Dear Mr. Wall,

Your application for the winter semester 2012/2013 in the following course of study at Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg is approved:

Ending goal: Master of Arts (M.A.)

Subjects:

• Political Science: main subject in 1^st semester

Short. Direct. Impersonal. Were you expecting a love-letter? Come on, people, this is Germany.

Gut gemacht, Schatz.   It is all a plateau from here.

…and the story continues!

So, I struggled through the e-mails and the phone calls, swallowed my pride before I started each conversation and picked my ego up off the floor when I was done. How I managed through all the directions in German is still a mystery to me, but I successfully secured 8 visits to 6 different barns before finally choosing mein deutsches Pferd.

Sometimes you have to ride a lot of mules before you find Black Beauty.

The Unstoppable – This horse was literally a Black Beauty. A Friesian with so much black hair I couldn’t even see his eyes. The owner switched to English just long enough to tell me a bunch of bad things about the barn owner (who didn’t speak any English), and then never uttered another English word. We rode together, me on the Friesian and she on her other horse, through the Black Forest. I could not stop the horse at all. Like, not even a tiny bit. Even my 22″ biceps were no match for this guy!

The Stand Up – This woman and I agreed to meet at her house and then go to the barn together. When I got there, there was a big sign on the door that said, “Nachricht für Trysta.” I was impressed…she spelled it correctly! Apparently I am a decent speller in German. As I waited patiently for an answer at the door, I contemplated the sign, which was tucked between the glass and the wrought iron of the door. “Nachricht” means news and also voicemail, sometimes information. So, I stuck my fingers between the open spaces and started to inspect the sign, which was tied with a pretty bow at the top. It wasn’t actually a sign at all, but an envelope. Inside, the woman had written me a letter (99.9% of which I understood! Yeah!), in which she told me that she had already promised the work to 4 other people. She didn’t have any way to contact me, but invited me to come to the barn regardless. Really? I called your cell phone. My e-mail was in the newspaper, for crying out loud. I drove home.

The Compound – Here, I meandered through at least ten different barns before finding the one that actually had the horses I would be working with. Apparently there were 80+ horses at this complex, all deceptively tucked into every nook and cranny available. After nearly getting bit and kicked while trying to tack up the horse, I was already feeling like this wasn’t going to work out. I have been bit and kicked enough by my own horses. I didn’t need to let someone else’s horse abuse me as a favor. I found out later that the owner actually had 8 teenage girls sharing her three horses. I would be #9. Or not.

The Crazy Farm – When I asked for the exact address to this barn, I was told there was no address, no street name. Great! Two strikes against me already: German, and completely indecipherable landmark-style directions. I managed to find the barn and then spent the next two hours listening to “the crazy lady” talk…non-stop…without interruption…about everything…and nothing. She told me the story of every one of the 30+ horses that were on the farm, that she doesn’t know how to read, how much she hates computers, and that she doesn’t travel more than 5km from her house. She also told me that she would not learn my name. It was too difficult for her. I told her that if I could learn German, she could learn one word…my name. She refused. She did, however, ask me when I was coming back. The opportunity was a loss, but I gained 2+ hours of listening comprehension practice!

The Vices – This mare was actually really cute, until she came out of the stall. Only 5 years old, the poor thing was so bored that she had already developed numerous bad habits. I really enjoyed riding the horse, but there was something about the owner that I just couldn’t put my finger on. Everything was too perfect and too new. I had to use a mounting block (I think) for fear of stretching out the stirrup leathers, the hooves had to be cleaned at a specific location, the horse couldn’t go outside if it was too muddy, I could only ride on Fridays, etc. I would be sharing the horse with the owner and her daughter. To sum it up in the eloquent words of my mother and sister, “Sometimes four girls in one place are just too many.”

Needless to say, none of the above quite fit the bill.

My Black Beauty is actually red, a total sweetheart, and really tall! His name is Dorian. Dorian’s owner is a self-declared “adventurer” who waits patiently as I jack-around with the word placement and accusative/dative/genitive tenses of each of my sentences. He has a son, also really sweet, who told me how great Dorian is and that he learned nothing in school that day.

So, Tally Ho! Me and mein deutches Pferd.