Last night was our department christmas party. It was at this nice restaurant in a big ole house. It was one of the coolest dinners I’ve ever had for this reason: at my table there was an Albanian girl who grew up in Switzerland, a Swiss guy who grew up in Thailand, a Swiss guy from Switzerland, an Italian, two French, another Italian who is fluent in German, English, and French, a half-Thai half-American girl, and me, from fucking Normal Illinois USA. Once the wine started flowing there were always three conversations going on at once in six different languages. A highlight was when Anne taught everyone “jing jing luuuh”, which means something like “very true!” or “WERD!” in Ghortspeak, so in my head I hear 8 different people all saying “WERD!” in their respective accents. Beautiful.
Also, the Europeans are meticulously thorough about cheersing, which takes upwards of 5 minutes with 9 people at the table.