Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
may need to mark the dates when reservations will first be available on your calendar, as
some of the best restaurants book up completely on the first day that reservations are avail-
able. But even if reservations are not actually necessary, calling ahead accomplishes sever-
al goals other than making sure you'll have a table. Calling from the United States to make
a reservation far in advance raises some curiosity about you, and you may receive some
special attention. You may receive the best table in the house, and the staff may be waiting
for you with curiosity, as happened to me in both Lisbon and Munich. In addition, calling
to make reservations is a relatively low-risk way to practice your new language. You may
find it very nerve wracking to make the first few calls, as I always do, but when you've
finished making your reservations, you'll feel a sense of pride in your abilities.
“So what's the name of this movie again, baby?” Mark was already on the couch and
settled in, ready for his and Hannah's weekly Saturday-night movie. Hannah was in the
bedroom, where she was finishing folding some laundry. “It's called
Girl with a Pearl Ear-
ring
,” she called in. “It's in English this time, baby.”
Mark laughed because he had been complaining about the fact that all the movies they had
been watching lately had been in Dutch. But his secret was that he actually enjoyed them.
He and Hannah had long since finished their Michel Thomas advanced course, and more
recently they'd been spending thirty minutes every night going through “Spoken World:
Dutch” together. They were both getting fairly proficient, and they were having a great
time speaking Dutch to each other as much as they could. But the thing that Mark loved the
most when practicing was imagining himself in the Netherlands, speaking Dutch to native
speakers. He couldn't wait to walk into a store and greet the storekeeper with a well-pro-
nounced “
Goedemiddag!
”
Since their Dutch was coming along so well, Hannah decided it would be a good idea to
watch movies in Dutch. There would still be English subtitles to hang on to, but she thought
it would be good to start getting used to Dutch spoken in a more natural way. And she
had been right, as the Dutch they heard in the movies was very different from the Dutch
they had heard in their cars and at their kitchen table. Thankfully, their study had prepared
them well enough to understand a lot of what they heard, especially when they were able
to glance down at the subtitles, but they found that there was a lot of variation in the way
certain words were said and in the grammar people used in real life
.
