I had booked a group tour. So far, I have had good experiences with this kind of travel, and this time, too, I met very friendly people. Of course: there’s always a fool around. But all in all we had rough fun together.
It proved to be a problem, however, that although we all came from germany, we did not always speak the same language. Almost all participants came from the rhine-main area. Only petra from baden-baden and i as a frenchwoman were the scribblers. It was not enough for me to be certified as speaking a dialect that was difficult to understand. There were also repeated misunderstandings concerning the time.
Our tour guide was a young romanian who had spent several semesters studying in saxony. When he said, "we’ll meet at a quarter to ten…", then for him and for me the matter was clear. But my fellow travelers rattled. Also petra from baden-baden, who was actually from brandenburg. What exactly did the tour guide mean??
It got even worse when he announced that the tour of the church would begin at three quarters of twelve. This completely overwhelmed the majority of the group, and even after several explanations that this meant nothing other than the "quarter to twelve" used in those people’s homeland, there were questions again and again.
I fear that it will be a long time before we have a truly united europe. As long as such questions are still open, nothing will come of it. Especially since we first had to clarify the question here in upper franconia, whether it was "kuchla" or "krapfen" heibt – or "krapfen.