After a 5-hour hike, we got on the train back to Prague and the ticket officer on the train didn’t speak English. However, my Czech was so bad, he immediately concluded that we were from Germany! He smiled, began blathering in German, and motioned that everything was going to be OK because in his mind, the language barrier had been broken. I guess my eyes weren’t glazed over enough for him to realize the Canadian flag on Sarah’s backpack wasn’t serving as a patch. For the remainder of the train ride, our officer occasionally walked by, smiled at his new German friends, and once he either told us the time or the number of stops remaining. Again, in German. Sarah and I began discussing if it was socially acceptable to correct him and tell him we aren’t from Germany, even after multiple “conversations” in German. Our conclusion – tell him in Czech that he spoke German very well and be done with it.
Unfortunately, our ticket officer was at the rear of the passenger car when we exited, so we never got the chance. However, at least he thinks that his many years of German language study finally paid off for the "Mullers".
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