Some habits take a long time to disappear.
I've been having a few postal deliveries recently. I'm at home most, if not all, of the time. So I was surprised to find a yellow card from the postman in my mail box one day last week. It said "Ihre Sendung ist da!" So I was aware what it meant.
Minor panic set in - where is it? What do I have to do to get it? Is it going to be complicated? And will I have to try and speak to anyone?
In the UK, these cards were a common way for the postman to avoid waiting the few seconds it took to ring the doorbell and hand the parcel over to you. We got them even when someone was at home. The postie didn't even bother to ring the bell most of the time. You then had to find out where the parcel had been returned to, get in the car and queue for ages at a collection point before receiving your goods.
In Japan, I could phone a number for an English speaking service and the parcel would be whisked back to me at home within a few hours, often quicker and always at a time specified by me.
Here, I had to type the information into Google Translate again. I'm getting quite good at typing long German words now.
It turned out my parcel had been life with a neighbour. Eek! Which neighbour? The address was scrawled on the card but I made out it was somewhere along the road opposite.
So I ventured out. a little nervously. Found the house; it belonged to an elderly gentleman whom I have noticed spends a lot of time doing his garden and sweeping the pavement.
I pressed the bell on his security gate. No answer. Tried again, a few more times - still no answer. He must be out. Or in his garden. But I couldn't see into the garden behind the huge hedge. Ah well, I'll go back later, I decided.
Suddenly he appeared from behind the hedge and made me jump. He looked pretty startled too, but soon recovered himself.
I, however, lost all remnants of sanity.
"Konnichi... err... Hello... umm... Guten Morgan!" I blurted. (It was afternoon...)
And bowed deeply.
WHAT? Where am I?
Desperately I tried to recover myself from this embarrassing cultural confusion and waved the yellow card at him. And reverted to plain old English.
His face was a picture! But he kindly let the crazy foreigner into his domain and fetched my parcel out of the shed.
I thanked him... in three languages. And to my horror found myself bowing again!
He showed me to the gate rather quickly and said "Goodbye."
I suppose I should be grateful the bowing habit isn't the worst thing I could have picked up over the years.