Beginner's German - sehr gut oder?

Lady of Leisure (diaryofaladyofleisure.blogspot.com.au)  is sharing her story: 

In Sweden, they say that once you have studied the German prepositions you will never, ever forget them. Everybody has them down pat. The Swedish expression is "knowing something like running water” but that doesn’t make any sense in English. I studied German for three years in high school. I lived in Paris as a child and I already spoke French fluently. I took a final exam in French and got an A with honors. German should have been a piece of cake since it is quite similar to the Scandinavian languages. It wasn’t. ”Durch, fur, gegen, ohne, um” and there was something that sounded like ”swischen”, but maybe swischen is not even in the same group as the durchfurgegenohneum. For some very strange reason I got B+ in German and I truly did not deserve it. The teacher must have mistaken me for the girl next to me who spoke German quite well thanks to her German father.

     Knowing the German prepositions "like running water"

When I was 18, I went skiing in the French alps with my boyfriend and a friend of mine. We took the train from Copenhagen to Geneva, with a transit somewhere in Germany. We were a little nervous about it, what if we couldn’t find the track and missed the train? As I was the only one who had studied German, it fell upon me to ask the train conductor. ”Welche gleis fur Geneva?” I asked politely. The conductor just stared at me. ”WELCHE GLEIS FUR GENEVA?” I repeted much louder in case he didn’t hear me. Still nothing but staring from the conductor. Perhaps I was pronouncing it wrong? I tried some other alternatives: ”Welche geisch? Welche glejjsch? Welche glaiiiis? Glaiiiisch?” By now the man was staring with his mouth wide open. ”Fyr Geneva? Zug fyr Geneva? Zuuck fyr Geneva?”. Either he didn’t know or he really didn’t understand me because we found out by ourselves once we got off the train. Voilà: I give you three years of German studies in a Swedish high school.

We arrived in Geneva where I could get around by speaking French and we got on the correct bus to the French alps. All well that ends well. Or as you would say in German according to Google Translator: Gut, alles gut endet.

   Bonjour la France!