Welke Taal Spreek Je?...Easter.

Last weekend was a time of rejoicing for much of the western world. Easter is, of course, the time when the Easter bunny was choclified on Good Friday and resurrected as a chocolate egg on Easter Sunday. Hang on a moment, I might be getting mixed up here...I do find it amazing that our favourite Holidays coincide with religious holidays. It's a cynical act for religious groups to try and push their beliefs on people at Christmas and Easter, quite frankly I wish they would leave those days for what they were originally intended!
Easter in Belgium is called Pasen and on Easter Sunday morning they walk down to the local bakery and pray to their God whom they call Pistole...well it certainly seemed like the whole village was there when I made the journey on Sunday. I was not alone this time and anyone who knows of my battle with the good people of the bakery will understand when I say that I was happy to be accompanied by a native Dutch speaker. Pistoles were duly ordered, and because everything would be shut on Monday (except the bakers), we decided to buy a ciabata as well. I think everyone is familiar with this wonderful piece of breadery (I made that word up), flat, full of holes and with a tendency to harden at each end. Well, the most wonderful thing happened. The girl behind the counter began to make a box up. Into the box was placed one of those delicious looking tarts that all Belgian bakers seem to make so well.
"I asked for a ciabata."
Open mouthed astonishment from the shop girl.
"Ci-a-ba-ta."
"you should point at it like I usually do" I offered.
"er!" point, point.
"oh sorry, I thought you asked for ...(name of tart remains unknown to me but probably sounds like ciabata)."
"Try asking for abdij brood," I whispered as the girl disposed of the box.
I was genuinely interested in what would happen but at the same time happy that maybe my accent wasn't as bad as I thought and that the poor girls that work the weekend shift at the bakers just had bad hearing caused by the incessant chugger chugger of the bread slicing machine.
I skipped all the way home.

Today's language lesson:
In English we have there/their, although they are pronounced in the same way they mean different things. In Dutch they have er/daar, both words have exactly the same meaning but can only be used in certain situations, for example:
er staat een fles - there stands a bottle
and
Vraag (question):-Waar is mijn brill? - where are my glasses?
Antwoord (answer):- Daar! Daar is jouw bril - there! there are your glasses.
I deliberately use "er" at every opportunity because it winds a certain person up. However, having just sat and reasoned out the above piece out I have come to the conclusion that I am right to use "er" and that if the inventors of the Dutch language hadn't been so bloody unreasonable with certain aspects of the language they might have come up with a better word for glove!
No Christians or shop assistants were hurt in the making of this post.