The Lernen to Talk Show: Episode 44 – Dr. Box!

Walking home from the Grüngürtel after making Episode 41, pangs of hunger lured me across Zülpicher Strasse to a kiosk adorned with white and red lights spelling out “DR. BOX”. I’d noticed the funny little building before, but I’d never approached it until that evening. At first I was reluctant to buy a crepe, thinking that I would need something more filling and could wait until I got home to cook up some good ol’ pasta and eggs. But the big, friendly man in the box wouldn’t take no for an answer, and treated me to a sample of the gourmet deli meat he used in his crepes. I was instantly sold, as much by his charisma as by the flavor, and I purchased a ham and cheese crepe. His chattiness continued as he prepared the crepe, and I was in stitches the entire time. Needless to say, that was the beginning of a delicious relationship. Walking home that evening, I made it my solemn quest to one day have Dr. Box as a guest on the Lernen to Talk Show. Well, the day has come! Meet Dr. Box, unbedingt the friendliest man in Germany, nay, all of Europe! And if you’re reading this in Germany, get yourself to Cologne, take the U-Bahn from the Dom to Neumarkt, hop on the 9 toward Sülz and get off when you see that warm red and white glow. Tell him Mickey sent you.

I was on the phone with my mom. Probably telling her how great Dr. Box is.

0:33 – I can’t believe how often I made this mistake.

0:37 – “One of”??? What was I thinking? This is my favorite food stand in the world.

1:21 – You gotta use formal articles when you’re talking to a Doctor. Watch out for the Sies and Ihrs in this episode.

1:52 – You may be wondering why someone who’s only tried the crepes twice would already have a frequent customer card filled with stamps. Well, allow me to explain! Three days before this episode was filmed, a few friends of mine came to town so that we could do a crazy race in Belgium together. They stayed at my place and on Sunday morning I took them all to Dr. Box. Seeing as they wouldn’t be back in Cologne any time soon, Dr. Box put all of the stamps on my card! What a guy.

2:32 – Did you hear that “machst du das”? I slipped up and forgot my formality…

2:52 – I’d never heard of the word “trinumeral” before, but that’s what the internet tells me Schnapszahl translates to. 11/11/11 was also the official start date of Karneval! I imagine he did a lot of business that day.

3:22 – Whoa, watch out with that enormous knife there, Doc.

3:46 – “Leutezahl” was my best guess for the word “population”. Leute means “people” and Zahl means count. Makes sense, right? Well, the real word for “population” is Bevölkerung.

3:54 – I guess he misheard me. Or I misspoke. That’s more likely.

4:06 – I’m getting hungry just looking at that. Only two euro for a Zimt und Zucker Crepe!

4:31 – I’m confused about how something called “ham” can technically be beef… Is that the case in the US, too?

4:59 – Here I say, “Ich empfehle alle meine Zuschauerin…” I pluralized that word Zuschauer incorrectly. It’s actually one of those words that don’t need to be modified to be plural. So the word for “viewer” and the word for “viewers” is the same: Zuschauer.

4:56 – Dr. Box can be heard in the background laughing and saying “mal probieren”. I think this is because what I said technically means, “You should all try Dr. Box crepes once (and only once).” At least that’s how I interpret his laugh… I didn’t mean to say it that way!

5:16 – I guess he doesn’t like being in front of the camera as much… sorry Simon!

At the corner of Speestrasse and Zülpicher Strasse, near U-Bahn Haltestelle Lindenburg.