The bus story

The other day I was waiting for a bus at the bus station. Packed with two relatively big and moreover heavvy bags as I was just coming from the shop. The bus arrived and I stepped in holding both bags in one hand trying to reach for my monthly ticket with the other hand. Even before I reached my ticket, the bus driver smiled and nodded so as to say "Yes, it is fine, I see you are loaded and I know you have the ticket". Wow, I was impressed.

During the ride home I remembered the good old days, when I was still living in my small village, from where I needed to take bus to go to school to another village. And on the way back, we (the children) would sometimes try to hide in the bus, so that we could take a longer ride to a bigger village/town to get some ice-cream. I am sure the bus driver knew we were there, but he just let us go. Thank you, you made our days in those times.

P.S.: After finishing ice-cream we would not have enough money to take the bus back to our village and the ticket was only valid for the distance between our village and the school, so we had to walk back home 4 km. Those were the days. Of course, we would always get a ride as everybody knows everybody in the village and our neighbours would bring us home.

Belgium, wonderful Belgium

Conversation in the street in front of my door just the other day. Actors: an older French speaking lady, let us call her "Madame", and me and my friend, let us call us "Us".

Madame: "Excuse moi, connaissez-vous un hôtel ici, dans le quartier?"
Us: "Non, mais il y a un hostel. A la fin de cette rue, juste derrière l`église. Il s`appelle Hostel Brueghel."
Madame: "Merci beaucoup, c`est juste avec lui que j`ai une réunion à 20 heures."

BTW, Pieter Brueghel died in 1569:)

P.S.: Do correct my French and/or English mistakes, if any:)

One of the flashes

I am sure we have all experienced the following situation.

Imagine being 7 years old. Sitting by a wooden desk at school. You can smell that wood and you can read the names of all previous students that sat behind just that desk. The school bell rings. The class has just started. In one moment immense silence in class. The teacher walks into the class. Everybody rises and says in one voice "Good morning, teacher". Teacher says "Good morning class". Everybody is allowed to sit down. Lesson begins.

The teacher writes on the blackboard "When I grow up I will be...". One by one we have to say what we want to be when we grow up. Classmates say "When I grow up I will be a doctor." "When I grow up I will be a lawyer." "When I grow up I will be a mechanic." "When I grow up I will be a teacher." "When I grow up I will be a nurse." "When I grow up I will be a journalist." "When I grow up I will be a writer." "When I grow up I will be a cook."

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"When I grow up I will live in Belgium."

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Words of the day

Today I crossed these two words and as they are interesting I decided to put them here! I use the Ask Oxford dictionary!





Try your search for unknown words using the form below.

Working 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Is this still possible?

It is Wednesday, 18.45, and I am just leaving the office. Walking in the rain, the dark surrounding me and all I can think of is the good old days, when I was working from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Is this still possible? It seems like impossible.

Mmmm, a couple more years and then I am of to my island:)

Miles to help

Do you fly Lufthansa? Do you have your Miles and More card to collect miles, but you do not fly so often that you would actually be able to exchange them for a ticket?

If you have some and you would like to do some good things, you can. You can give them to support education, fight disease, feed the hungry, preserve endangered species, replant forests, protect ecosystems, help children and orphans.

How?

Go to Miles and More webpage and clik on Miles to Help - Do Good tab on left side of the screen.

I have given my 10.000 miles to protect ecosystems by purchasing and protection of 2,500 square metres of the world's largest wetland area, the Pantanal in Brazil.

Le français

Not everybody has the privilege to work in international environment. I have the privilege to work in mainly French speaking environment having colleagues that appreciate my French mistakes and do correct me when I say something wrong. We all know that people do not always correct our mistakes maybe because they do not want to offend us, maybe because they just do not want to correct us or due to other causes even though we would love them to do so.

Let me make the story shorter. How to learn which gender is the appropriate word in French? I know, I know, English language does not know the genders of the words, but let us think about the genders of the words in other languages that know this issue:) French, Spanish, Italian, German, Slovenian, Croatian and even Dutch has something similar. But let us focus on French.

For all those who speak Slovene and would like to learn French; here is a hint about how to learn the genders of the words in French. Please note that this is not a rule, but merely my own observation (just for fun). The observation goes like this: If the word is of female gender in Slovene; then it is probably of male gender in French language and vice-versa. Let us look at the examples:

English - Slovene - French
f - female gender
m - male gender
n - neutral gender

A book - knjiga (f) - un livre (m)
A group - skupina (f) - un groupe (m)
A pillow - blazina (f) - un coussin (m)

A chair - stol (m) - une chaise (f)
A pool - bazen (m) - une piscine (f)
Sound - glas (m) - une voix (f)

A beer - pivo (n) - une bière (f)
A question - vprašanje (n) - un question (m)
A bicycle - kolo (n) - un vélo (m)

However and although it is still very interesting thinking of the word beer being of female gender, this does not apply always. Let us have a look at the examples below:

A door - vrata (f) - une porte (f)
A night - noč (f) - une nuit (f)
A flower- roža (f) - une rose (f), une fleur (f)
A step - korak (m) - un pas (m)
A day - dan (m) - un jour (m) (but "une journée" (f))
A glass - kozarec (m) - un verre (m)

To make the things more likeable I randomly picked 10 words from the French - Slovene dictionary to see if they were female or male. Here is the result:

A tip - napitnina (f) - un pourboire (m)
Surface - površina (f) - une surface (f)
A balance - tehtnica (f) - une balance (f)
Heat - vročina (f) - une chaleur (f)
A Secret - skrivnost (f) - un secret (m)
A List - seznam (m) - une liste (f)
A horn - rog (m) - une corne (f)
A bandit - razbojnik (m) - un brigand (m), un bandit (m)
A coat - plašč (m) - un manteau (m)
A circle - krog (m) - un cercle (m)

I guess the odds are 60:40.