Categories: friends
Date: 15 July 2004 04:50:01
My German friends are here! Yippee! I spent several minutes conversing in the Teutonic tongue over the telephone: I threw verbs in with wild abandon; nouns with incorrect genders were strewn throughout; and, as Mark Twain wonderfully suggests in his side-splitting "The Awful German Language", I heaved in a Schlag or Zug when lost for words. I am almost certain we are to meet in the hotel lobby at 6.30pm.
Meetings on the half-hour are fraught with danger. While we say "half-six" and mean "6.30", a German takes it to mean "5.30" [half six = half-way to six]. So I steer clear of them whenever I have my wits about me; alack! today was not such a day.