... conversation with a cabbie/ en route to Rotterdam airport

Another day, another cab-driver; this guy was Czech but he was born in Poland (or was it the other way round?) from where he migrated some years ago to the Netherlands. Net result? Well, to start with, he can't speak English... and apparently he doesn't even know any Dutch! We communicated via animated hand-movements and through the use of certain "key"-words. Here are excerpts from our 'cave-men-like' conversation, five minutes into our trip:

Cabbie: ... Mama-Papa... Czech.... I Poland... you? (inquisitive expresson)
Me (taking a leaf out of his book): Me? India... Mama-Papa... India also... (smiling/beaming in fact!)
Cabbie: [He's trying to ask me what on Earth I'm doing here]
Me: (trying to tell him that I'm here on a short-term onsite assignment is not a good idea at this point, so...) I... (pointing at myself)... Holland (pointing out the window)... holiday... then, back (hand-movement)... India ("Comprende?")
Cabbie: [He got it...] (smiles)

We seemed to have a couple of things in common - we were both working a fair distance away from home, and neither of us knew Dutch... :-)

Our (rather painful, yet challenging) conversation continued in the same vein for a while, until I finally reached. Thankfully, he had understood the first thing that I told him when we met - "Rotterdam Airport".

Before we left, we exchanged the names of our villages and promised to send each other smoke-signals from time to time...
[Ok, I admit... bad joke. :-( ]
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I was travelling to London, to spend the weekend with family and friends. :-)