The joys of learning a new language mean that one is left oftentimes satisfied and proud, at other times more than a little red faced. I’m told that it’s all about learning to laugh at yourself. (And be laughed at by others.)

One morning the task fell to yours truly to speak for 10 minutes in my German class about ‘Mein Heimatland’ - my home country. This was not difficult in itself: it’s facing question time afterwards that can often leave you open to catastrophe. After explaining that yes, we do eat kangaroo, and yes, this does make us the only country on earth that eats our own icon, and yes, chicken tastes better, and no, I haven’t met Kylie Minogue, and no, you can’t get kangaroo burgers at McDonalds in Australia (yes, that one was from an American guy), my tutor threw one way out of left field.

‘Alison, warum ist die Sonne in Australien so gefährlich?’ (Why is the sun in Australia so dangerous?) Given that ‘ozone layer’ is not really a term that falls into the category of everyday conversation, I naturally had absolutely no idea what it was - come to think of it, I didn’t even know what the word for ‘hole’ was. (For future reference, it’s ‘Ozonloch’.)
So after a number of mumbled ums and ahs and possibly a few Aussie curses as well I blurted out something along the lines of ‘Wir haben eine große Fehler in unsere Himmel’, which loosely translated means something like ‘We have a big mistake in our heavens’. I have a feeling this is something I’m not going to live down for a while yet.