Basteln

Last night was the monthly expats pub quiz, 25 + questions of sheer torture, one was a complete guess that came right, one a complete guess that didn't, we wrote Portugal for one answer, rubbed it out & wrote Malta only to find the answer was Portugal, Rio was a gut answer but we couldn't work out why it felt right, while some were too easy for the Brits (in a latin round, how is EIIR better known) but had the non commonwealth expats screaming. We even flipped a beer mat (no coin readily to hand) for one T/F answer because we really hadn't a clue.

It was a miracle that we achieved the score (23/25) that we did, it wont stop any of us turning up again in 4-5 weeks time for a repeat performance, we are that masochistic!

On a slightly different tack, one of the people there last night (friend of a friend) works in a kindergarten here and didn't know what the verb 'basteln' meant. We were surprised, because while there is no English equivalent, every little kid loves to basteln & I'm quite sure that not a day goes past in kindergarten when the scissors and the glue don't make an appearance.

Basteln - to make things/to do handicrafts.