News You Can Bruise for 2004 November 1

(3) Mon Nov 01 2004 20:50 Curse of the well-meaning tourist:

Seth is encountering the same problem I did in Brussels, where you brush up on the local language and think you're hot stuff and everyone just speaks English to you because it's faster.

Comments:: Posted by Brian Danger Hicks at Tue Nov 02 2004 09:26

I remember having the same trouble on my school trip to Germany. But there was the added bit that for the last few days of the trip we stayed with a host family who actually tried to speak with us in German, but by that point we had all given up.

Also, if you're trying to order fast food in German, you have to say "nummer drei" instead of just "drei". Otherwise they'll get all confused.

Posted by Leonard at Tue Nov 02 2004 09:55

I was forever afraid I'd say "la gauffre" instead of "au gauffre" and somehow order the concept of waffles, or all the waffles in existence, or whatever weird thing I learned "la x" meant in that context; furthermore that they would actually carry out my order and I'd have to pay for the concept of waffles.

Posted by Kristen at Tue Nov 02 2004 20:00

I can't believe it was a year ago when you left for the Clark Campaign. Now it is already the election. Can you believe how fast time flies? I wasn't even pregnant then!