Dutch lessons...again

I started taking Dutch lessons again last night. Before I go on, don't worry, I will write more about our trip to Australia this weekend, I just wanted to write this since I haven't written in awhile and, honestly, to relieve some guilt.

My friend, whom I met about two years ago on our previous attempt at Dutch classes, and I thought it was finally time to stop making excuses and start courses again. It could be our pending four year anniversary of living in the country and the ever mounting guilt at living in a country and not being fluent in the local language yet. That's not the guilt I mentioned before so hold on.

This time, we went for a Dutch for Expats class taught for English speakers. As the other members of our (coincidentally) all female class filed in, I felt like this class would be worth the slightly higher price tag. I was the first to arrive thanks to my husband doing me the big favor of driving me the ten kilometers across town and potentially giving up the last remaining parking spot on our always crowded street so that I didn't have to take public transport when my imminent jet lag kicked in.

The instructor greeted me in Dutch and, while surprised and having a bit of reversed culture shock after speaking only English for a month, I responded as best I could and took a seat. Just as I was thinking, "Okay, this is good. The teacher is speaking mainly Dutch. This is the best way to learn. I've been told that. I just need to be open to it"... the next student walked in and her eyes bulged and mouth dropped open in a nervous shock when greeted in Dutch, the typical expat reaction to Dutch and sported by me for my first two years here and still my default reaction if I don't consciously make an effort to relax my face and breath. As I watched and listened to the other members of the class excitedly chat to each other (they had all taken the previous class together) in English and recognized the English, Australian, and British accents of the women all roughly my age, I sighed in relief. This is going to be a fun class. My last class closer resembled the UN General Assembly and English was sporadic.

We eased into the course by introducing ourselves and explaining what we did on vacation. As I had just explained this the day before to my Dutch mother-in-law, I felt reasonably comfortable and was okay with being asked to go first. I was interrupted by the last student arriving to the class and asked to stop so I scanned the room to see expressions of mild shock and panic on the faces of my classmates. For the first time, I had actually impressed (actually intimidated) others with my Dutch! To their wowed comments, I impulsively spouted, "My mother-in-law only speaks Dutch with me"...somehow explaining that I must get a lot of practice.

Not only is that statement a bald faced lie, but I also failed to interject that not only do we only see her once every few months, but also that I had lived in The Netherlands for close to four years, much longer than most of them. Where did that outburst come from? And why did I feel the need to wrongly blame my mother-in-law to these strangers instead of admit that I am horrible with languages and more than a tad lazy? Thankfully, my friend didn't bust me on my lie, but she had all right to. Does anyone else have verbal diarrhea when meeting new people? I should have just blamed jet lag, but that would have be another lie.