"Cheese"

When I was alone in Amsterdam, I came upon this incredible photo exhibition of pictures of animals in the wild and they were spectacular huge prints.

I kept trying to take a photo of myself in front of the pictures, and failing miserably at getting a reasonable pic of myself and enough of the animals to tell what they were.

for example, this was the best one... sad but true!

A nice german couple came over and i tried to ask them in English to take a photo, and they tried to ask me in halting english if I wanted them ot take a photo. but something was lst because we couldn't understand each other enough to accomplish the photographic endevour.

Then I had one of those fantastic gestalt moments (to use some of my limited German in meta-application...) where everything became clear... I remembered overhearing some German people asking other German people to take a photo when we were in Germany earlier this year.

So I opened my mouth and said exactly what I remembered, "bitte, maken foto?" (please, make a picture?)

The gentleman from the Geman couple smiled the biggest smile and nodded his head vigorously. He took the camera and I posed for this photo.



After he took the photo, the gentleman smiled a small quirky smile and said, "cheese?..."

I nodded, understanding he was talking about what silly americans say when they pose for pictures.

He grinned broadly and exclaimed, "yes, CHEESE!"