So on the airplane today, I met a lovely family from Afghanistan and talked to the mother for most of the flight. She actually started talking to me, rather than I to her (although I sat down beside them on purpose). We talked about all sorts of random countries, translation work, and religion. It was pretty awesome.
Then at the airport, my stepfather couldn't locate me and called me and I couldn't take the call because I had no credit and there were roaming charges, so I asked this random guy if I could use this phone and his friend (an Arab) gave me his phone and then I talked to
him while waiting and it's just... ugh.
I think it's interesting how Christianity and Islam have very similar values, but Christians seem to be much more willing to ignore them and be selfish and immoral.
And yeah, I'm in Germany now!
I was also wondering, if I were to procreate with someone who would bring a language that isn't one of 'mine' into the picture, how do people decide which languages to raise their children in? Logically, I'd go for the most widely spoken ones (including English) or ones very similar to linguae francae (e.g. Urdu -> Hindi). But I think it's important to give children a sense of identity and while I think national pride and all that is a bunch of rubbish, I think language is an important part of culture and children should be encouraged to understand their parents' culture. I know how awful it is when there's such a huge cultural shift between generations that communication becomes very difficult, and I really want to try avoiding that if and when I have kids...