Just One of Many Signs That We've Lived in Germany for Too Long!

We recently returned from a vacation to Italy. I will post more about that later. However, I wanted to share a cute little story that happened with Toby while we were on that vacation. More than likely, it's more of one of those stories where "you had to be there" to appreciate how funny it was...but here you go:

We were sitting in a restaurant and we ordered our drinks along with a carafe of water. All four of us associate restaurant dining with soda drinking but sodas are very expensive in Europe and they don't come with refills. So, what we do a lot of times is order the sodas and then drink water as our second drink. The water is also expensive, and we drink the non-carbonated water, so you know it most likely comes straight out of their tap, but we get charged nonetheless.

Anyhow, we ordered water, Toby had finished his soda, and I poured him a glass full of water. Toby took one look at that water and noticed ice! You see, in Germany it is not customary to drink your drinks with ice, but apparently in the Italian restaurant we were at that night, they serve ice.

Toby noticed the ice. And started laughing and pointing to his glass. He said, "Ice in the water?" Giggle, giggle, giggle. "Why did they put ice in the water?" Giggle, giggle, giggle.

James and I turned to each other and reminded ourselves again that Toby was only a mere 7 months old when we moved here. Sure, we did spend two months in the summer of 2008 in the States, but Germany is really the "home" he knows. It's some of the little details that will be different for him. If I said the "grocery store" I know he wouldn't know what that is. It's "the commissary" or it's "Tengelmann's" which is the German grocery store as an example.

Until later,

Emily