Anouk

My little grandniece, Anouk, accompanied us on our travels around Switzerland and was just so much fun even though she didn't speak a word of English and seemed reluctant to even repeat the words we gave her by pointing to things and saying what they were. She was able to play tic tac toe with me in the car, and I drew her a couple of mazes that she breezed her way through.

When we got into the Italian part of Switzerland, no one spoke any German, and the manager of the hotel where Thomas made reservations communicated with us in English. Thomas had called ahead to reserve two rooms....one with a king size bed, and the other with a king and an extra twin. When we were checking in, the manager asked Laura how old Anouk was, and Laura said, "Seven."

We all swung around when we heard "EIGHT" from Anouk. We all started laughing hysterically, as eight is the official age when you pay more for a child in the room. None of us had a hard time understanding when Laura said to Anouk in German "So now you understand English, huh?" The manager got such a kick out of the whole thing that she immediately said, "I charge you the same...no problem." and we all started snickering every time we thought about it. Actually, Anouk just had a birthday and Laura is a grandparent, not a parent, and I know I am confused about ages of the grandchildren, but trying to explain all that would have made it worse, so we all just had a good laugh!

Later when Anouk started saying "waterfall" when we spotted one on the mountain, Laura said "So now you have THREE words, waterfall, seven and eight" Laura reminds me a lot of myself!