A child shyly approaches the food counter at the latest tourist attraction she and her brothers had just run round. Quietly she asks the server for more chips, glancing nervously back at her family seated at a plastic table, surrounded by other families and the familiar chatter of bored children that was the same here as it was at home. The man smiles and points behind her at a rack of snack foods. She looks then asks again.

This repeats.

At eight years old you don’t really think about the history of your country, or others; oh you might dream of Camelot, or paint Viking shields at school but the toils and bonds: broken and forged, the multitude years. They don’t really figure in your mind scape. Other countries are for holidays, and warm sun and late nights.

The only thing that can really bother a child away is the language barrier: the insecurity in understanding, the confusion.

Her mistake dawns and she runs back, blushing furiously, too embarrassed to ask again correctly.

Fries, not chips, fries.