La Petite Union Européenne

This is a very interesting place, for reasons I didn’t expect.  Dinner every night is a veritable melting pot of nations.  Some of the faces around the table: A couple from the Ukraine (internist and surgeon), a nurse from Switzerland (the German-speaking part), a man from Switzerland (the French-speaking part), a nurse from Spain (who retired from a career as a lawyer and then became a nurse), two Gabonese students, and a doctor from France (who is on sabbatical from a 20-year career as an internist in the French Antilles and drove here from France).  On the way back from dinner the other night in town, we were piled into the back of a big van, and we picked up a German student on the way, and suddenly everyone in the back (except the Americans) started speaking German.  (As Other Elizabeth said, “This conversation has taken a turn for the German.”)  And I kind of enjoy conversing with someone when neither of your first languages is the one you’re speaking in.  There’s no self-consciousness about grammar or pronunciation when the person you’re talking to probably won’t notice anyway.