How To Say Ausfahrt (or not)

The drive-through was not an option. It required speaking without gestures. And, goodness knows, we need those gestures if we are going to survive these next several months in this foreign land. So we walked up to the counter at the McDonald’s in Bayreuth, Germany armed with our tiny German vocabulary and our  hands ready to point to the pictures of McMenu cheeseburgers and Happy Meal toys.  Thankfully, the guy behind the counter was nice (as I find most Germans to be), so he smiled a lot as my husband and I worked our way through the order. After we got past the we-want-a-four-piece chicken-Mcnugget-Happy-Meal-not-four-actual-Happy-Meals correction, we were on our way to a lovely meal in our hotel room. That is, until he asked if we wanted it to stay or for carry out. And that is when the broken-German/English-accent stepped in and taught me some things about German pronunciation.

See, we’d been driving all day from Paris, France to our new hometown in Germany, which required much time on the Autobahn. It also allowed us time to switch from trying to figure out words in French to trying to remember words in German. Along the way, we learned the word “Ausfahrt” among many others. Go ahead and say that word out loud, as you think it should be pronounced. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Ausfahrt.

Okay. That’s funny, huh?

Well, as we drove across Germany, we saw many Ausfahrts to the various villages and cities along the way. It means “Exit.” And “fahrt”, well, that has to do with driving. So, in my awesome I-am-learning-this-language sort of way, it made sense to answer the nice McDonald’s man with the word I knew. So I told him we would like to take the food and fahrt. Totally. Not. Kidding.

And that’s when the giggles popped up all around. Giggles from the depths of my husband’s belly. Giggles from inside the girls. Even a giggle from the guy behind the counter. I had to walk away as the tears started flowing from my attempts at keeping the giggles down inside of me. Thankfully, the struggle did not cause the other kind of fahrt (he he). We walked out of McDonald’s with tears flowing down my cheeks, laughter waiting to erupt as soon as we stepped foot outside.

And the amazing thing is, they got every single part of our order correct.

Oh my!