To go...

We were staying at a hotel in San Diego whose name included the word "Sea" but which I don't remember exactly. I do remember it was on Prospect St., though, in front of a Vons supermarket. It was 1989. I was 9 years old. I'd only been learning English for 2 years at the time, and though I could handle the Present and Past tenses quite well, I hadn't quite grasped the idea of what it meant to be able to actually speak to somebody in a foreign language.

So there we were in our nice hotel on Prospect St. and one morning my mum had this brilliant idea and said to me: "Why don't you go to that café across the street to get us a cup of coffee and a cup of tea and bring it back here?"

I initially freaked out (Who in their right mind sends a 9-year-old alone to buy coffee and tea in a foreign country? Yeah, my mum).

And so there I went, all by myself, to the café. I approached the counter and asked one of the guys there in my then rusty English: "One tea and one coffee, please." So far, so good. The guy seemed to have understood what I wanted. And then came the dreadful reply:

"To go?"

What?? What did he just say?? Honest, I had no idea. The guy stared at me and must have repeated those devilish words like 5 times... I panicked. I didn't know how to react. But suddenly... something clicked inside my head: Yeah, right! To go! To take it away!!

"Yes, yes. To go!"

And so he handed me the paper bag containing two plastic cups, one with coffee and one with tea. I paid the bill and I left. I got back to the hotel. My mum was proud of me.

That was the very first time I spoke English in a daily-life situation and for actual communication.

P.