so where've you been? 39 Germany: Hamburg and Luebeck

I'm doing my best, you know. I'm trying to speak German to everyone. Well, as much as I can.
I'm good enough to do a phone conversation. (It may be the worst phone conversation anyone ever had, but hey, that's a start.)

And I'm dodging into the bogs at Hamburg Altstadt hauptbahnhof, as an American teenager starts down the wrong steps. I'm helpful, I inform him in clear and confident german that he's heading into the Ladies' not the Gents.
I mean, I think the pointing helped, but the point is, I was trying.

And even when the fat rude frau pushed in front of me at the turnstile (dragging my case over my foot and ripping most of the flesh from my toes, and didn't respond even slightly at the fact I was screaming (in german!) and the blood was gushing everywhere, and the toilet attendant had to try to stem the gushing), I only voiced one single word that wasn't german*.

And I'm ordering a big piggy meat laden fruhstuck for me and an old friend on our last morning in Hamburg, and the counter staff at the backerei are pissing me off.
They serve people out of sequence, they wander off into a corner if you make eye contact, they refuse to serve a boiled egg in this queue - this is not the korrekt queue for the boiled egg you see - they are hot and sweating and pissed off and they hate all the customers.

And I've already shown my dark side to them.
It might have been the swearing.
Or slamming down a price list.
Perhaps when I put my head down against the glass counter top above the pflaume-thingies, and beat it quietly.

I guess it was always going to go wrong.

What I can't explain is my reaction.

The counter staff speak to me in rapid, brusque tones.
I explain to them that I am not too good at German (in german!).
I ask them very politely if they can repeat what they have just said (in german!).
I tell them which bit of the sentence I am having trouble with (in german!).
I ask if they can speak more slowly for me (in german!).

I don't say anything AT ALL about why the bloody hell won't you speak a word of any of the international languages of communication, none of the top ten of which are fucking german?

Honest.

I even tried to keep it out of my eyes, in case they could tell when I was thinking it.

And yet, when the fat bloody frau deliberately speeds up what she's saying, with an exasperatedly heavy eye-roll, and raises her voice LOUDER 'so that I will understand'**, I literally cannot believe it.

I throw my arms up, swear at her, and storm out of the backerei. Force Frank (who speaks no german) to deal with it***.

I just can't believe she spoke LOUDER, not slower or clearer.

I mean, I'm British. That's what we're supposed to do.

* or printable.

** she's going to do the coffee later
but she won't bring it to the table,
so I have to come back inside for it,
and they're totally out of orange juice.
Take that, fat bloody frau!
I looked it up.
Later. Secretly.
You stroppy cow.
I win.

*** Frank dealt with it. Perfectly.