April 13, 2022 • 22 mins
Travel is picking up again, and that means things are getting lost in translation. Even when we don't understand the words from those around us, embarrassment is universal, and this week's guest, Ben Bowlin, learned that the hard way. Farts are also universal, but that's just an observation and has nothing to do with the episode.
Ben is a LEGEND in the podcasting space and host of Stuff They Don't Want You to Know, Ridiculous History, and CarStuff. You can find more of him on Instagram and Twitter.
Make sure to call 323-741-1873 to tell us YOUR stories and head over to our Instagram for even more!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Bonjour and bien venitos. Hashtag story Time the podcast where
I bring you everyday stories from everyday people, brought to
you by I Heart Radio and Curativity. I'm your host,
Will Duo, Lingo McFadden and you guys. I was looking
(00:35):
at some of the back end analytics of the podcast
and guess what. We have a worldwide presence. We have
fable babies all around the globe. I mean, did you
know we have thirty seven listeners in Canada. Yeah, to
whom I would like to say, Hey, they are all
you hosers sitting on your chester fields and your get
drinking your labat. How's it? Welcome to the show, Welcome
(01:00):
to the pod. We also have we got ten people
listening to us in Australia. That's cool. Good eye to
all you Bowgains sitting on you, Donny with your budgie
smugglers around your ankles. Thanks for listening. We even have
I think we have three people listening in South Korea,
to whom I would say, God yae. I'm sure I
(01:21):
pronounced that perfectly. And you know, for our listeners around
the world, if you're planning on visiting the United States
and you don't speak a lot of English. Ay, I'm
surprised that you're listening to this podcast, um and be,
here's an important phrase for you to know. Just practice
this one. Please don't shoot me with your big guns.
(01:42):
I have ranch dressing for you. This is especially useful
in the Midwest. You know, there's so much lost in translation.
Which is a nice segue into our guests on today's show,
Ben Bolan. And Ben is the executive producer of How
Stuff Works, and he's the host of About. But you
probably know him from Stuff they Don't want you to
Know and Ridiculous History. And Ben told me a story
(02:05):
that involves a honeymoon, Germans and a misunderstanding. So this
is this is something that still haunts me to this day.
I've traveled to many places under many different circumstances. Um.
I was living homeless in Paris and in the Charles
(02:26):
de Gaul airport for a while. I was in Central
America for a while. I'm just saying things didn't always
work out, and out of out of all those things
that I can say on air, one of my favorite
learning experiences in the world of travel was my first
time in Germany. Have you ever been to Germany, I
(02:47):
have not is it's on my list, um just under
Japan and probably Thailand, but it's up there. But I mean,
first of all, you living homeless at the Charles de
gaul Airports is like a Tom Hanks movie where he
is terminal based off but in a oh well, it
(03:08):
was a shout out to Tom Hanks. It was before terminal,
or it was before I was aware of terminals, so
I very much didn't feel cool about it. I was like, look,
I'm a hipster, but this is too much and uh
that that story. I did not intend to be on
the streets of Paris, and it wasn't for a long time,
(03:30):
but I had I had saved up for a return ticket,
and I in desperation when things fell through. I used
some change because payphones were thinking that time, and called
my called my parents and asked them if there was
any way they could help me out with an earlier ticket,
and my dad just laughed his ass off and said, no,
good luck. This is a learning experience. But I did
(03:53):
make it back. Did you have to like bust your
way home? Were you doing like chalk art or miming?
Or there was one busking situation. There was one busking
situation on the train and it was just um, it
was some very nice musicians who were like there was
one day where I was like, you can just kind
of ride the train forever, right and always loitering. I'm
(04:15):
just kind of technically I'm going somewhere, and uh, the
this this group of musicians came in, you know, like
a accordion, I think a guitar or something like that,
and they were singing, and they were singing songs in French.
I also didn't speak French. It was not I was
not a clever man, and so I uh so they
(04:36):
started singing, um, what a wonderful world, the Louis Armstrong version,
and I joined in and well I joined in and
saying but I was singing in English and they still
you know, they threw me a little bit of change.
Was very nice. But with with that experience, you know,
I was like, Okay, you have to be a more
(04:58):
responsible traveler. If you're going to go to these places,
you need to be safe. And as cool as it
is to just drop everything and say I'm gonna go
blah blah blah, and as much ben as much as
you dig improv there are some situations where planning is key.
And so I I thought about this and it's like,
(05:20):
things are I'm gonna be I'm gonna be classy. You know,
I'm gonna know what I'm doing. I'm not going to
be a dumb American tourist, etcetera, etcetera. I'm going to
break that stereotype. And I was okay with it. I
ended up after Central America marrying my high school sweetheart
and it was it was so it was a beautiful,
(05:43):
beautiful moment and it's a beautiful time. Uh. We scrimpt
and we saved to go on a honeymoon, and this
was a big expense for us. We wanted to travel
internationally and my partner at the time, she really really
wanted to go to Germany. And so this is before
(06:04):
to date myself further, this is before you know, I
had a smart phone. This is before I could I
could pull up a bunch of easily easy to find information.
So I did. I did serious research Man as someone
who doesn't speak German. This is after the wall had
fallen though, right, yes, yes, this yeah not that fun.
No no, no, So this was um, let's see, this
(06:28):
is probably early two thousand and and so I so
I was like a level of planning I had never
before thought myself capable of, you know, like I knew
when the plane was gonna land, good job me. I
knew that there was a hotel we were going to
go to bonus points there. And I had some mind,
(06:48):
like I had a rough itinerary. I was like, here's
some historic sites we can see, you know, and you know,
I'll even like I'll figure out a romantic dinner situation. Right,
I feel like this sometime map west to write like
where you printed quest? I printed directions, you know what
I mean? I printed out directions. I had a little folder.
(07:10):
It was adorable. So so the day cups and we travel.
I think, first we land in London, and we're in
London for a few days, and there's something just um,
no one's cliche to say, but there's something like romantic
about not having a ton of money but being with
(07:31):
a person you love and like you. You hear you
hear that situation, and some parts of our heads just
kind of say romance and italicized fonts and we don't
need we just have each other and that's all we need.
Exactly exactly that was anyway, So London, it turns out,
(07:52):
is kind of pricing us. So we we left. We
we had already been planning to go to Germany, but
we had a few days in London, and then we
left London. We're landing in Berlin, and this is the moment.
Will I have spent months sort of trying to learn
all this sort of stuff. I didn't want my partner
(08:13):
to have to worry about everything. And one of the
things I did, despite not uh not not knowing a
leak of German, as I have memorized German phrases, and
you know, I was well aware and this is a
true thing for people who haven't been to Europe. I
was well aware that many residents of Western Europe, regardless
(08:34):
of the country the official language, they probably speak a
better version of English than a lot of US Americans.
A lot of them speak for languages, no problem um.
And the extent of my German, just so you know,
is from the time I played the m C in
Cabaret in in two thousands. Oh Man, I wish you
(08:56):
had been there with me in Germany. I could have
used a hand and you know, beyond my way through
this exactly, so I quickly learned, like I knew most
people would probably speak English on some level, especially you know,
(09:18):
the capital of German it's an international city, Berld. So
I immediately was locked and loaded with my thank yous
and my excuse me and where where is the bathroom?
Etcetera's uh, but I got a lot of I got
a lot of stuff wrong. We were walking widely and
(09:39):
we're using the training system, and my first encounter with
a German authority, like after getting out of customs was
a guy. A guy came up and said something to
me in German, and I didn't understand what he was saying,
so I just kind of like shrugged and what I
hoped was an endearing and innocent way. And then something
(10:01):
like he knew immediately that we were from the US,
because he just sort of took a breath, tried not
to roll his eyes, and he said tickets in English,
and in English, I replied, oh, I'm sorry, man, I
don't have any money. I don't have any two and
he goes, I'm asking to check your tickets and oh
(10:23):
you work here, Oh ship, my bad dude. And then
he wasn't amused, but he was he was nice enough,
so we continue on, and I'm thinking, and I'm talking
to my wife at the time, and I say, you know,
we'll call her Kate for the purposes of this story,
So you know, O, Kate. I feel like, I know
(10:43):
every country has a stereotype, and I know stereotypes are
the source of terrible, terrible things. But did these German
folks seem a little bit kind of like cold, do you, well,
a little brusque and it's so warm and fuzzy, not
so not so warm and fuzzy. Yeah. Not one stranger
(11:04):
hugged me. But but uh, but she pointed out we're
from the southeastern United States, which is a place that
is known for being a little more outgoing, being a
little more casual with whomever. Um, and I wanted to
bust these stereotypes, even though I thought she had a point.
So my phrase that I was very proud of that
(11:27):
I had worked on and like, I had like fifteen phrases,
ten of which were useful, four of which were pretty
good max it was terrible, but four of which like
would be intelligible. And one of the ones I was
most proud of is that if people came up to
(11:48):
us and we're speaking to us in German. I would
try my best. That was my rule. I try my
best to speak some German if they happened to ask
a question that could be answered one of these fifteen ways.
But my emergency, man, my escape hatch was if if
their German is too faster, if I'm clearly over my head,
(12:08):
I'll say I'm sorry, my German is not good enough
to continue this conversation. Can we continue in English? And
I deployed this strategy advanced sentence right there to say
all I know is which is I love you? Which
I feel like I would also, you know, get you
(12:29):
out of a situation. I should have learned that way.
Where was that anyway? So so I so we're like
walking on the street, and we're here for a period
of weeks walking on the street, and sometimes people will
just come up and ask us stuff. You know, this
is around this around winter, So they're the Christmas markets
are in full swing, people are in a generally good mood.
(12:52):
Vikings are in the street, yes, yes, uh and and everybody.
And I didn't know that either. Every You can drink
anywhere in Germany, and you could buy beer everywhere. It's weird.
It sounds you know about right, It's like it's like
the Las Vegas of h I love that. Yeah, okay,
(13:17):
that's the quotable. So this so I would have this
experience that became increasingly common for some reason or another.
We'd be talking to someone alright, you know, like go
to a restaurant, try to order something, and I would
butcher the German and they would still respond to German.
And I would say, I'm sorry, my German is not
good enough to continue this conversation. Can we continue in English?
(13:40):
And then they would pause and I could feel the
temperature ticked down, and then they would say yes, and
we would have this very chilling, cold, perfunctory kind of
conversation in English, and we we stayed at a hostile again,
financial concerns being a thing. And after about two weeks,
(14:04):
I was convinced that some stereotypes are true. And I
was like, maybe I'm maybe I'm too warm and fuzzy,
but I feel like this city, if not this country
is not not hostile, but not they're not sweethearts, that's
for sure. And it had me had me thinking all
these horrible things. I was like man World War two though,
(14:27):
like m and so I just what happened during I
know I didn't we should have gone to Prague. We
should have gone Yeah, we should have gone to Prague.
And uh I would say stuff like this to my
to my wife, and she would go, well, you know,
(14:49):
assumptions are bad, blah blah, and she kind of cut
the conversation off. So fast forward end of our trip.
This is also this is also a and I don't
mean to bring us down here, but this is also
right after during our honeymoon, we had decided it wasn't
gonna work out and we were going to be friends.
(15:10):
But we were like, well, we're gonna have to break up.
And there was no huge dramatic fight or anything like that.
These are too to emotionally aware people making a mutual decision.
But did did Germany and the did did the honeymoon
location have anything to do if you maybe in Hawaii
when things have been different? You know, That's that's a
(15:33):
question I've asked myself sometimes. But but here's what happened.
So it's fast forward. It's like the very last day,
it's the penultimate days, second last day before we leave,
and I'm in the lobby of the hostel and someone
who was also staying at the hostel. It comes up
(15:55):
there talking to me in German about something. So I say,
I'm sorry, my German is not good enough to continue
the conversation. Could we continue in English? And this lady stops,
she pauses, and then in a flawless American accent, she says,
you're a dick and leaves. And the person at the
counter of the hostel who's working there cracks up. It's
(16:16):
like she is laughing. She's actually laughing. I turned around, like, go,
what happened? You know, I'm worried that I did something.
I didn't know what I could have done. What I know?
She says, you know, do you know? Do you know
what you're saying? I said, yeah, I'm saying blah blah
blah blah. And she said, no, you're saying, I'm sorry,
(16:39):
your German is not good enough to continue. Can we
continue this conversation in English? And she told me the
right like the German way, and and I said, oh shit,
I've been saying that like everybody. And she goes, I know,
I know, I've seen it. And then and then I
go and I run up stairs, I get I get
(17:01):
my wife. I'm like Kate, I fucked something up and
and I was wrong. It's not a stereotype, it's us
and she goes, oh yeah, oh yeah, the yeah I know.
And it's like you knew this whole time and she's
like yeah, She's like it's hilarious, right, Like, no, it's
not hilarious. And so I I was trying to apologize
(17:25):
to people in the hostel. I went back to this restaurant,
was like, hey, I know, things MA bad and uh it.
Maybe I made it a bigger issue than it actually was.
But if you are a German speaker, if you live
in Germany, I would like to officially apologize. Welcome back.
(17:53):
It's time for everybody's favorite segment, Robo Read It Reads Now.
In Ben's story, our robot interns detective the word wedding,
then scanned read it and found a thread where user
Olya ru asked what wedding moment made you think they're
not going to make it? And here are some of
the best answers. One of my good friends got married
and on the wedding day she was belligerently drunk before
(18:16):
the ceremony even started and couldn't even get through the lines.
She was supposed to repeat, such as I promised to
love you. She ended up slapping the groom, spilling champagne
on her dress, and then crying under a table while
he tried to comfort her. They lasted about four months.
You know, it's never a good sign if you're actively
trying to erase the memory of what is supposed to
(18:37):
be the happiest day of your life. Look, some people
make a baby on their wedding night. Other people turn
into one. My wife got invited to a client's daughter's wedding.
The couple were both drama students. Many of the bridal
party were drama students. The maid of honors toast consisted
of tearful declarations of unrequited love to the groom along
the lines of if it couldn't be me, I'm glad
(19:00):
it's my best friend that's marrying you. The best man's
speech was a lusty declaration of if it doesn't work out,
call me babe, like the previous time you called me.
Other toasts were similarly weird. A guy at the table
I was seated it was a friend of the bride,
and said to me that he was this close to
standing up during the speed now or Forever Hold your
(19:21):
Peace thing. I'm still not sure if the whole thing
was a bunch of emotionally fucked up twenty year old
or one big piece of performance art, I would totally
go see that play. Also, haven't these people heard of polyamory?
This can all work. They can have their cake and
fuck it. Do not the couple getting married, but the
best man and maid of honor who were married to
(19:42):
each other. Best man's speech was all about how hard
it was to be married. I've been married for a
year and it feels like one hundred years made of honor,
stands up to give a speech and just says ditto.
It was so awkward and really brought the whole room down.
Best man and maid of honor were to worst within
a year. Couple who got married are still married thirty
(20:03):
plus years later. I sometimes wonder if the speeches actually
were helpful in how not to act as a couple.
Next time I have to give a speech at a wedding,
I'm just saying, dittoh, I don't care what the person
before me said, That's all I'm saying. When a couple
was doing the vows and the priest got to the
for richer or poorer part, and she said for richer
or richer, and maybe for poorer. The officiant was not pleased.
(20:25):
I think they made it a year. This lady sounds
like the worst. But the officiant was like in sickness
or in health, and she was like, I mean, as
long as he's not like super sick, because that would
be gross. She was like, I do, I guess, and
(20:46):
these are all reasons why I'm never getting married. Thank you, robots.
Do you have a cringey story you want to share
with your best friends on hashtag storytime. We'll let us
know on our Instagram at story time dot pod, or
call the Storytime hotline at three to three seven one
eighteen seventy three. Take a second and hit subscribe so
you don't miss next week's episode featuring Mike John's Here's
(21:09):
a sneaky, little peaky and then a barker climbs up
into the ring and he starts shouting at the crowd.
We're here today to see the battle between the literary
giant Michael Mohammed Knight and the literal giant Abdullah the Butcher.
Thank you so much for listening to hashtag storytime. I'd
(21:30):
love to give another big don kashin to Ben Boland
for being on the podcast. As always. You can find
links to all the awesome stuff he has going on
in the description. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave
us a review. It helps us out a lot and
I literally read every single one of them. Hashtag Storytime
is produced by I Heart Radio and Curativity Productions. Hosted
by Will McFadden. Sound designed by Tony Maddox, written by
(21:53):
Will McFadden and Jason Shapiro, Produced by Jason Shapiro, Daniel
La Mora and Jordan Elijah Michael. Theme song by Scott
Timon's artwork by John Kuzagah
Bonjour and bien venitos. Hashtag story Time the podcast where
I bring you everyday stories from everyday people, brought to
you by I Heart Radio and Curativity. I'm your host,
Will Duo, Lingo McFadden and you guys. I was looking
(00:35):
at some of the back end analytics of the podcast
and guess what. We have a worldwide presence. We have
fable babies all around the globe. I mean, did you
know we have thirty seven listeners in Canada. Yeah, to
whom I would like to say, Hey, they are all
you hosers sitting on your chester fields and your get
drinking your labat. How's it? Welcome to the show, Welcome
(01:00):
to the pod. We also have we got ten people
listening to us in Australia. That's cool. Good eye to
all you Bowgains sitting on you, Donny with your budgie
smugglers around your ankles. Thanks for listening. We even have
I think we have three people listening in South Korea,
to whom I would say, God yae. I'm sure I
(01:21):
pronounced that perfectly. And you know, for our listeners around
the world, if you're planning on visiting the United States
and you don't speak a lot of English. Ay, I'm
surprised that you're listening to this podcast, um and be,
here's an important phrase for you to know. Just practice
this one. Please don't shoot me with your big guns.
(01:42):
I have ranch dressing for you. This is especially useful
in the Midwest. You know, there's so much lost in translation.
Which is a nice segue into our guests on today's show,
Ben Bolan. And Ben is the executive producer of How
Stuff Works, and he's the host of About. But you
probably know him from Stuff they Don't want you to
Know and Ridiculous History. And Ben told me a story
(02:05):
that involves a honeymoon, Germans and a misunderstanding. So this
is this is something that still haunts me to this day.
I've traveled to many places under many different circumstances. Um.
I was living homeless in Paris and in the Charles
(02:26):
de Gaul airport for a while. I was in Central
America for a while. I'm just saying things didn't always
work out, and out of out of all those things
that I can say on air, one of my favorite
learning experiences in the world of travel was my first
time in Germany. Have you ever been to Germany, I
(02:47):
have not is it's on my list, um just under
Japan and probably Thailand, but it's up there. But I mean,
first of all, you living homeless at the Charles de
gaul Airports is like a Tom Hanks movie where he
is terminal based off but in a oh well, it
(03:08):
was a shout out to Tom Hanks. It was before terminal,
or it was before I was aware of terminals, so
I very much didn't feel cool about it. I was like, look,
I'm a hipster, but this is too much and uh
that that story. I did not intend to be on
the streets of Paris, and it wasn't for a long time,
(03:30):
but I had I had saved up for a return ticket,
and I in desperation when things fell through. I used
some change because payphones were thinking that time, and called
my called my parents and asked them if there was
any way they could help me out with an earlier ticket,
and my dad just laughed his ass off and said, no,
good luck. This is a learning experience. But I did
(03:53):
make it back. Did you have to like bust your
way home? Were you doing like chalk art or miming?
Or there was one busking situation. There was one busking
situation on the train and it was just um, it
was some very nice musicians who were like there was
one day where I was like, you can just kind
of ride the train forever, right and always loitering. I'm
(04:15):
just kind of technically I'm going somewhere, and uh, the
this this group of musicians came in, you know, like
a accordion, I think a guitar or something like that,
and they were singing, and they were singing songs in French.
I also didn't speak French. It was not I was
not a clever man, and so I uh so they
(04:36):
started singing, um, what a wonderful world, the Louis Armstrong version,
and I joined in and well I joined in and
saying but I was singing in English and they still
you know, they threw me a little bit of change.
Was very nice. But with with that experience, you know,
I was like, Okay, you have to be a more
(04:58):
responsible traveler. If you're going to go to these places,
you need to be safe. And as cool as it
is to just drop everything and say I'm gonna go
blah blah blah, and as much ben as much as
you dig improv there are some situations where planning is key.
And so I I thought about this and it's like,
(05:20):
things are I'm gonna be I'm gonna be classy. You know,
I'm gonna know what I'm doing. I'm not going to
be a dumb American tourist, etcetera, etcetera. I'm going to
break that stereotype. And I was okay with it. I
ended up after Central America marrying my high school sweetheart
and it was it was so it was a beautiful,
(05:43):
beautiful moment and it's a beautiful time. Uh. We scrimpt
and we saved to go on a honeymoon, and this
was a big expense for us. We wanted to travel
internationally and my partner at the time, she really really
wanted to go to Germany. And so this is before
(06:04):
to date myself further, this is before you know, I
had a smart phone. This is before I could I
could pull up a bunch of easily easy to find information.
So I did. I did serious research Man as someone
who doesn't speak German. This is after the wall had
fallen though, right, yes, yes, this yeah not that fun.
No no, no, So this was um, let's see, this
(06:28):
is probably early two thousand and and so I so
I was like a level of planning I had never
before thought myself capable of, you know, like I knew
when the plane was gonna land, good job me. I
knew that there was a hotel we were going to
go to bonus points there. And I had some mind,
(06:48):
like I had a rough itinerary. I was like, here's
some historic sites we can see, you know, and you know,
I'll even like I'll figure out a romantic dinner situation. Right,
I feel like this sometime map west to write like
where you printed quest? I printed directions, you know what
I mean? I printed out directions. I had a little folder.
(07:10):
It was adorable. So so the day cups and we travel.
I think, first we land in London, and we're in
London for a few days, and there's something just um,
no one's cliche to say, but there's something like romantic
about not having a ton of money but being with
(07:31):
a person you love and like you. You hear you
hear that situation, and some parts of our heads just
kind of say romance and italicized fonts and we don't
need we just have each other and that's all we need.
Exactly exactly that was anyway, So London, it turns out,
(07:52):
is kind of pricing us. So we we left. We
we had already been planning to go to Germany, but
we had a few days in London, and then we
left London. We're landing in Berlin, and this is the moment.
Will I have spent months sort of trying to learn
all this sort of stuff. I didn't want my partner
(08:13):
to have to worry about everything. And one of the
things I did, despite not uh not not knowing a
leak of German, as I have memorized German phrases, and
you know, I was well aware and this is a
true thing for people who haven't been to Europe. I
was well aware that many residents of Western Europe, regardless
(08:34):
of the country the official language, they probably speak a
better version of English than a lot of US Americans.
A lot of them speak for languages, no problem um.
And the extent of my German, just so you know,
is from the time I played the m C in
Cabaret in in two thousands. Oh Man, I wish you
(08:56):
had been there with me in Germany. I could have
used a hand and you know, beyond my way through
this exactly, so I quickly learned, like I knew most
people would probably speak English on some level, especially you know,
(09:18):
the capital of German it's an international city, Berld. So
I immediately was locked and loaded with my thank yous
and my excuse me and where where is the bathroom?
Etcetera's uh, but I got a lot of I got
a lot of stuff wrong. We were walking widely and
(09:39):
we're using the training system, and my first encounter with
a German authority, like after getting out of customs was
a guy. A guy came up and said something to
me in German, and I didn't understand what he was saying,
so I just kind of like shrugged and what I
hoped was an endearing and innocent way. And then something
(10:01):
like he knew immediately that we were from the US,
because he just sort of took a breath, tried not
to roll his eyes, and he said tickets in English,
and in English, I replied, oh, I'm sorry, man, I
don't have any money. I don't have any two and
he goes, I'm asking to check your tickets and oh
(10:23):
you work here, Oh ship, my bad dude. And then
he wasn't amused, but he was he was nice enough,
so we continue on, and I'm thinking, and I'm talking
to my wife at the time, and I say, you know,
we'll call her Kate for the purposes of this story,
So you know, O, Kate. I feel like, I know
(10:43):
every country has a stereotype, and I know stereotypes are
the source of terrible, terrible things. But did these German
folks seem a little bit kind of like cold, do you, well,
a little brusque and it's so warm and fuzzy, not
so not so warm and fuzzy. Yeah. Not one stranger
(11:04):
hugged me. But but uh, but she pointed out we're
from the southeastern United States, which is a place that
is known for being a little more outgoing, being a
little more casual with whomever. Um, and I wanted to
bust these stereotypes, even though I thought she had a point.
So my phrase that I was very proud of that
(11:27):
I had worked on and like, I had like fifteen phrases,
ten of which were useful, four of which were pretty
good max it was terrible, but four of which like
would be intelligible. And one of the ones I was
most proud of is that if people came up to
(11:48):
us and we're speaking to us in German. I would
try my best. That was my rule. I try my
best to speak some German if they happened to ask
a question that could be answered one of these fifteen ways.
But my emergency, man, my escape hatch was if if
their German is too faster, if I'm clearly over my head,
(12:08):
I'll say I'm sorry, my German is not good enough
to continue this conversation. Can we continue in English? And
I deployed this strategy advanced sentence right there to say
all I know is which is I love you? Which
I feel like I would also, you know, get you
(12:29):
out of a situation. I should have learned that way.
Where was that anyway? So so I so we're like
walking on the street, and we're here for a period
of weeks walking on the street, and sometimes people will
just come up and ask us stuff. You know, this
is around this around winter, So they're the Christmas markets
are in full swing, people are in a generally good mood.
(12:52):
Vikings are in the street, yes, yes, uh and and everybody.
And I didn't know that either. Every You can drink
anywhere in Germany, and you could buy beer everywhere. It's weird.
It sounds you know about right, It's like it's like
the Las Vegas of h I love that. Yeah, okay,
(13:17):
that's the quotable. So this so I would have this
experience that became increasingly common for some reason or another.
We'd be talking to someone alright, you know, like go
to a restaurant, try to order something, and I would
butcher the German and they would still respond to German.
And I would say, I'm sorry, my German is not
good enough to continue this conversation. Can we continue in English?
(13:40):
And then they would pause and I could feel the
temperature ticked down, and then they would say yes, and
we would have this very chilling, cold, perfunctory kind of
conversation in English, and we we stayed at a hostile again,
financial concerns being a thing. And after about two weeks,
(14:04):
I was convinced that some stereotypes are true. And I
was like, maybe I'm maybe I'm too warm and fuzzy,
but I feel like this city, if not this country
is not not hostile, but not they're not sweethearts, that's
for sure. And it had me had me thinking all
these horrible things. I was like man World War two though,
(14:27):
like m and so I just what happened during I
know I didn't we should have gone to Prague. We
should have gone Yeah, we should have gone to Prague.
And uh I would say stuff like this to my
to my wife, and she would go, well, you know,
(14:49):
assumptions are bad, blah blah, and she kind of cut
the conversation off. So fast forward end of our trip.
This is also this is also a and I don't
mean to bring us down here, but this is also
right after during our honeymoon, we had decided it wasn't
gonna work out and we were going to be friends.
(15:10):
But we were like, well, we're gonna have to break up.
And there was no huge dramatic fight or anything like that.
These are too to emotionally aware people making a mutual decision.
But did did Germany and the did did the honeymoon
location have anything to do if you maybe in Hawaii
when things have been different? You know, That's that's a
(15:33):
question I've asked myself sometimes. But but here's what happened.
So it's fast forward. It's like the very last day,
it's the penultimate days, second last day before we leave,
and I'm in the lobby of the hostel and someone
who was also staying at the hostel. It comes up
(15:55):
there talking to me in German about something. So I say,
I'm sorry, my German is not good enough to continue
the conversation. Could we continue in English? And this lady stops,
she pauses, and then in a flawless American accent, she says,
you're a dick and leaves. And the person at the
counter of the hostel who's working there cracks up. It's
(16:16):
like she is laughing. She's actually laughing. I turned around, like, go,
what happened? You know, I'm worried that I did something.
I didn't know what I could have done. What I know?
She says, you know, do you know? Do you know
what you're saying? I said, yeah, I'm saying blah blah
blah blah. And she said, no, you're saying, I'm sorry,
(16:39):
your German is not good enough to continue. Can we
continue this conversation in English? And she told me the
right like the German way, and and I said, oh shit,
I've been saying that like everybody. And she goes, I know,
I know, I've seen it. And then and then I
go and I run up stairs, I get I get
(17:01):
my wife. I'm like Kate, I fucked something up and
and I was wrong. It's not a stereotype, it's us
and she goes, oh yeah, oh yeah, the yeah I know.
And it's like you knew this whole time and she's
like yeah, She's like it's hilarious, right, Like, no, it's
not hilarious. And so I I was trying to apologize
(17:25):
to people in the hostel. I went back to this restaurant,
was like, hey, I know, things MA bad and uh it.
Maybe I made it a bigger issue than it actually was.
But if you are a German speaker, if you live
in Germany, I would like to officially apologize. Welcome back.
(17:53):
It's time for everybody's favorite segment, Robo Read It Reads Now.
In Ben's story, our robot interns detective the word wedding,
then scanned read it and found a thread where user
Olya ru asked what wedding moment made you think they're
not going to make it? And here are some of
the best answers. One of my good friends got married
and on the wedding day she was belligerently drunk before
(18:16):
the ceremony even started and couldn't even get through the lines.
She was supposed to repeat, such as I promised to
love you. She ended up slapping the groom, spilling champagne
on her dress, and then crying under a table while
he tried to comfort her. They lasted about four months.
You know, it's never a good sign if you're actively
trying to erase the memory of what is supposed to
(18:37):
be the happiest day of your life. Look, some people
make a baby on their wedding night. Other people turn
into one. My wife got invited to a client's daughter's wedding.
The couple were both drama students. Many of the bridal
party were drama students. The maid of honors toast consisted
of tearful declarations of unrequited love to the groom along
the lines of if it couldn't be me, I'm glad
(19:00):
it's my best friend that's marrying you. The best man's
speech was a lusty declaration of if it doesn't work out,
call me babe, like the previous time you called me.
Other toasts were similarly weird. A guy at the table
I was seated it was a friend of the bride,
and said to me that he was this close to
standing up during the speed now or Forever Hold your
(19:21):
Peace thing. I'm still not sure if the whole thing
was a bunch of emotionally fucked up twenty year old
or one big piece of performance art, I would totally
go see that play. Also, haven't these people heard of polyamory?
This can all work. They can have their cake and
fuck it. Do not the couple getting married, but the
best man and maid of honor who were married to
(19:42):
each other. Best man's speech was all about how hard
it was to be married. I've been married for a
year and it feels like one hundred years made of honor,
stands up to give a speech and just says ditto.
It was so awkward and really brought the whole room down.
Best man and maid of honor were to worst within
a year. Couple who got married are still married thirty
(20:03):
plus years later. I sometimes wonder if the speeches actually
were helpful in how not to act as a couple.
Next time I have to give a speech at a wedding,
I'm just saying, dittoh, I don't care what the person
before me said, That's all I'm saying. When a couple
was doing the vows and the priest got to the
for richer or poorer part, and she said for richer
or richer, and maybe for poorer. The officiant was not pleased.
(20:25):
I think they made it a year. This lady sounds
like the worst. But the officiant was like in sickness
or in health, and she was like, I mean, as
long as he's not like super sick, because that would
be gross. She was like, I do, I guess, and
(20:46):
these are all reasons why I'm never getting married. Thank you, robots.
Do you have a cringey story you want to share
with your best friends on hashtag storytime. We'll let us
know on our Instagram at story time dot pod, or
call the Storytime hotline at three to three seven one
eighteen seventy three. Take a second and hit subscribe so
you don't miss next week's episode featuring Mike John's Here's
(21:09):
a sneaky, little peaky and then a barker climbs up
into the ring and he starts shouting at the crowd.
We're here today to see the battle between the literary
giant Michael Mohammed Knight and the literal giant Abdullah the Butcher.
Thank you so much for listening to hashtag storytime. I'd
(21:30):
love to give another big don kashin to Ben Boland
for being on the podcast. As always. You can find
links to all the awesome stuff he has going on
in the description. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave
us a review. It helps us out a lot and
I literally read every single one of them. Hashtag Storytime
is produced by I Heart Radio and Curativity Productions. Hosted
by Will McFadden. Sound designed by Tony Maddox, written by
(21:53):
Will McFadden and Jason Shapiro, Produced by Jason Shapiro, Daniel
La Mora and Jordan Elijah Michael. Theme song by Scott
Timon's artwork by John Kuzagah
Host
Will McFadden
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