Oma at Chartres

My Oma and Opa were up for dinner tonight and when I mentioned that I'd like to travel to Chartres some day the following little story came up. . .

My Oma used to be very proficient in languages before her mind fell victim to alzheimers. She was fluent in Spanish, German, French, English, and Italian. Oma also used to love history. She knew European history better than anyone else I've ever met. Needless to say, she was a very smart woman and well educated.

Well, one time my Oma and Opa were visiting Chartres, in France. My Oma decided that she wanted to take a tour of the cathedral. My Opa decided to sit down and wait for her. He figured the tour wouldn't be too long. Well, dear Oma tagged on to the first tour group she saw and followed the entire tour in French. Then she decided that she might learning something knew or different from a different tour guide and so she tagged on to a tour in Italian. Since she enjoyed that one so much, she tagged on to the next German one. Well, that was fascinating to her so she decided she might as well try the English tour. If you're going to do the tour in French, Italian, German, and English, you might as well do it in Spanish as well. . . after all was said and done my Opa had to wait quite some time for my Oma to be done following all these tours. I'm sure she learnt a lot about Chartres that day though! (And my Opa probably learnt a thing or two about patience!)