One Language That Even Google Translate Can't Help WIth

        A few years back, Mrs Max and I went on a little jolly around the world, because, why not! Oh, the places we went. The people we met, mostly European backpackers, in every country. It was amazing! It wasn't just the locals in the various countries that we met as well, it was totally normal when in, say, Byron Bay in Australia to be surrounded by three Swiss, two French, four Spaniards and millions upon millions of Germans. One of them was also called Max, which naturally won him first prize in life, according to me. It was fantastic! A perfect opportunity to learn about different people, different lives and different cultures that are normally just a few hundred miles across the Channel, while we're half way around the world. I learned that; the Swiss eat far too much pasta, the Germans simply cannot say the word "smurf" and everyone I ever met from Norway had the brightest and blondest hair of anyone I ever met on the whole trip, and we even went to Los Angeles! It was an amazing time, and a fantastic experience I'd recommend to anyone who wants to do it.

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I could learn every language in the world, and there's still one that will always stump me.

There's one thing about speaking English that I enjoy; everyone else in the world appears to speak it. It takes the whole "language barrier" thing away for the majority of the time. This was discovered by a friend of mine on a trip to The Netherlands last year when, in the belief that they spoke as little English as we do Dutch, she shouted "tits" across the train, much to the rapturous amusement of a German business-boy opposite me. Even if you're from, say, Norway and you're speaking to someone from France, you might not speak each others' language, so you'll both speak in English. Bonus! Now, this doesn't mean I'll do the standard thing while abroad of speaking LOUDLY... AND... SLOWLY while asking for TWO... BEERS... PLEASE because I can't be bothered to learn the local lingo.

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