...is how I came to Ivana's birthday celebration on Saturday. It was at her Grandparent's garden in the middle of nowhere. (Everyone in Europe seems to have a garden area somewhere near where they live and they often celebrate parties there)
Anyway...it's no fun going to a family party when you don't speak the language. At all. None. I mean, I can say: "my name is...", "give me please...", and other survival phrases, but that quickly becomes obsolete when trying to enter into a political conversation.
And this is what I find funny: these wonderful language learning books have so many "useful" phrases such as "the cat is on the mat" or "the monkey is on the branch" and it's really hard to use them in any conversation.*
Them: "Bob, when going into a store in America, do you have to pay with a credit card?"
Me: "Uh, the cat is on the mat?"
So, I felt kinda like a piece of furniture they lug around during a family visit.
But the good thing was that I spoke to her grandparents in German (80 years ago this area was a part of Germany so most people that age can speak it) and that was ok...all 5 minutes of it.
The garden was quite beautiful and I was able to take some nice pics, and tried to get a picture of a bee in flight but it turned out to be much harder than I thought. Those wily bees!
* This is Eddie Izzard. I cannot claim originality to this situation, but I can relate!
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