Our friend Marja invited us to her elementary school in Hoorn to introduce us as her Canadian friends to her grade school kids. Apparently they were very excited to meet us, especially since we came from such a far place….just to visit them ;).

It was such a surreal experience trying to speak broken English to a class full of Dutch speaking children. Most of them knew a bit of English and some were a bit shy to speak to us. Of course, there were a few bold kids who asked us various probing questions about what where we live (where I was from originally), favourite things and what we like to do, etc.

I was reminded again that despite the language barrier and especially with children, facial expressions is such as universal language…and conversations based on that alone can certainly go a long way.