Working with the PoPo.

Recently--out of the blue--I received an email from an English teacher at a neighboring school.  He was in desperate need of help and searching for a native English speaker to help him with his second job at the local police college.  All of these popos-in-training are required to learn traffic basics in English, like how to pull over the car of a tourist and tell them that they are not allowed to use their cell phone while driving.

The English teacher was having trouble with these future police officers goofing off when practicing routine traffic checks in English.  Apparently they were all making jokes to one another in the dialect and trying to give each other a hard time when they were taking their turns being the "police."  Or just being super big douche bags to one another, which is relatively unlikely to happen. They weren't really getting any good practice in, and heaven forbid that they pulled over a tourist--they would have been so lost and only known how to insult each other.  So the teacher wanted me to come in and pretend that I don't speak any German and be the traffic guinea pig.  I knew that the class would be mostly male (and mostly my age) so I gladly volunteered.

When I walked in the room, I was pleased to discover about 35 students all dressed in their cop uniform.  Mostly male.  Mostly age appropriate.  The English teacher then left me alone with them to ask them questions and to tell them a little bit about myself.  They turned out to be quite a lively bunch--they asked me if I had ever been arrested.  Or if I was married.  Or single.  Or looking for an Austrian boyfriend.  Jackpot.

After that, I proceeded to drive the English teachers car (which is a manual--I don't know how to drive a manual) around the parking lot of the police college so that the officers could pull me over and ask to see my papers and what not.  It was a total blast.  They all got so nervous to have to actually pull me over in the car and ask me questions.  And I would purposely try and make it slightly difficult for them by asking them directions or being unable to pay the ticket because I don't have any money on me.  Overall a really fun and interesting time.  They asked me to go out to the bar with them sometime soon, so we'll see how that goes!  Until then, I'll keep practicing getting pulled over by the Austrian police--by the end of December I'll have had enough practice sweet-talking my way out of tickets and know enough of the police force to get myself out of any kind of snaffoo.

Ciao!