Last Tuesday I went to the Dutch Cafe again. It turned out to be kind of interesting (but the trips to and from the Cafe were tedious and involved no amorous drunk guys, so I guess you can't have everything). I was the only student that showed up which meant that for an hour and a half I essentially got private Dutch classes from one of the other Dutch teachers (not mine) and two of the ladies from the Language Institute.
One of the ladies had studied Arabic and had lived in Egypt for a while (perhaps two years?) while she worked on languages. So it was fun to talk about that. Also, it is fun to say "Egypt" in Dutch. It sounds kind of like e-KGi-ptu.
It did mean that I had to work really, really hard, though. It is tiring work to think that hard about what one is saying as well as listening that hard to figure out what everyone else is saying. I think that it was good for my Dutch but it was also quite difficult. It is also hard to always have to think of super simple ways to say everything because you don't have much of a vocabulary. I think I definitely take vocabulary for granted in English.
I had a cappaccino, which probably wasn't the wisest move at 8 o'clock at night, but it was pretty tasty. It came with a little candy. At the end of the evening, when they brought the bill, they also brought mints, so I had one of those, and it turned out to be banana-mint flavored. I guess it tasted fine, actually, but that is not really a flavor combination that I would have thought of.
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