Language School Pays Off!!

Four or five different restaurants deliver pizza in Siedlce. Personally, I like them all, we Stovers have never been picky when it comes to food though you'd probably never guess it. Now Ginger, she grew up in Chicago (when not in Thailand) and Chicago is the pizza capital of the world, its hard to duplicate the kind of pizza they turn out there. Through three years of trial and error the Layers' have managed to find a place that is close. Well, you have to ask for thick crust, extra sauce and double cheese. But when all of it comes together, its a masterpiece my friends. The pizza is so good in fact that it even satisfies the tastebuds of my Chicago born wife and children. The major hurdle is in ordering the pizza, because its over the phone and because asking for all of the extra stuff only complicates the process. Up to this point we have called the Layers and asked them to order it for us, but that stopped TODAY.

We have learned many of the words in the first two weeks of language school that are needed to place a pizza order, of course putting them together in an intelligible way is a different story. I had Ben send me an email of what needed to be said and then I called them up. If you've ever attempted to speak a second language you know the fear and trepidation one faces when forced to use it. Fortunately my "hunter/ gatherer" instincts took over. The conversation went suprisingly smooth, she understood everything I said and I understood most of what she said. There were a couple of questions she asked that I did not understand so I just said "tak" (yes) and hoped for the best. 25 minutes later we had our pizza and just like we ordered, (ok so I didn't ask for the onions, but at least they weren't anchovies). To celebrate the momentous occasion Ginger took a picture of the pizza man as he delivered it. You can tell by the picture that he was thrilled. He may never come back again after being bombarded by camera flashes as the apartment door opened. At least he has a story to tell his colleagues about the crazy Americans taking pictures and cheering over ordinary pizza. However, you and I know that this wasn't ordinary pizza, this-this was the taste of freedom. It reminds me of a poem I learned in highschool, "two pizza joints diverged in a yellow wood and I--I took the one with more cheese, and that has made all the difference!"