its the little things that matter

Keep off the pigeon's please, Amsterdam
Originally uploaded by cutjas

hey all,

the picture here is from Albert Heijn, a local grocery store chain in the nederlands. I have a funny, haha funny, experience there the other day when I was shopping for Lambs meat. I noticed that when I enter a new country with a new language I work so hard to learn that language that I don't remember simpler parts of my own language (english). Case in point, I know how to pronounce Bezuidehuiseweg correctly. But, I didn't realize that lamb in dutch is, well, lam. I was in the grocery store, staring at the meat, for about 10 min, I figured out what pork was, what beef was, I even figured out what viel was, but lamb was the elusive meat on the day. Finally, I did what no man should have to do, ever! I asked for help. There was a very nice lady next to me and I asked if she spoke english, she did. Then I asked her what the dutch word for lamb was...she said, lam. We stared at eat other for a second, not sure what to think. I honestly thought she was just repeating what I had said to make sure she got it right. No, she was telling me that the dutch word for lamb was lam. She then, not being confident in herself took me over to the lam and showed me, just to make sure. Well, when I saw the spelling you could say I felt like a total idiot!! That would be an understatement. I thanked her and then left the store defeated in my linguistic abilities for the day. Lam...crap if you ask me.

P.S. the lam was delicious.