Have I mentioned this already?

As much as I enjoy living in Germany, I have to say I greatly look forward to coming home and having my own "secret language." I am beginning to fantasize more than a healthy amount about coming back to the States, going to the park or to a coffee shop and cracking open a hefty novel in German, which I will read very obviously and prominently. The first time I was able to read a book in German all by myself I started taking the thing with me on the train, in the Straßenbahn, into cafes, wherever I could be seen, thinking this way people would be "tricked" into thinking I was German. Kind of like when you're a child and you open a book and you let your eyes roll over the text for a while, hoping people will see you and assume you are actually reading.

Of course, the problem I had for a while was that wherever I took my book, my pocket dictionary had to come too so I could discreetly look up the hard words, which kind of defeated the purpose.