When I was 14 I took part in an exchange program. Most of the students
in my class had an exchange partner from our partner school in Slough
(about one hour from London). We were writing emails and letters and in
May 2004 the English students visited us for ten days in Austria.
Me and my exchange partner Emerald got along very well. Sure, at the
beginning it was a bit awkward to have someone you had never met before
staying at your house, but after some days we got used to it and we both
enjoyed visiting the typical Austrian sites. The only thing was that I
always had the feeling that she wasn't really keen on eating Austrian
food like Schnitzl, Schweinsbraten or Kaiserschmarren. She tasted
everything, but she just ate a little bit and then claimed to be full -
just to eat a whole package of crisps as a dessert.
So, one day my mother thought it would be good to have something
"international" for dinner. We decided to order some pizzas from a local
pizzeria. I asked Emerald which kind of pizza she wanted to have and
she answered that she just liked "the normal one with pepperoni". I felt
quite disgusted by the thought of eating a pizza just with (what I
thought) "Pfefferoni" on it, but I didn't bother asking twice and
ordered a pizza with jalapeño peppers for her.
You can't imagine the look on her face when the pizza was being
delivered and Emerald opened the pizza box! She didn't want to be
impolite and point out that I'd misunderstood her, so she tried to eat
the pizza including the spicy jalapeños. But
after some pieces of pizza she started putting away the jalapenos. When I
asked if everything was alright, she admitted that "pepperoni" in
English actually means "Salami" and that she had just wanted a normal
"Salami-Pizza"!
Sure, at first I felt embarrassed about this stupid mistake but when
Emerald started laughing, I simply had to join in. Today, after more
than four years, she sometimes still makes fun of me because of our
"pepperoni-debacle"...
