Saturday night fever
A little step at a time

Moving in a country where you don’t speak the language is some kind of a challenge. Everyone would agree on this.
And when you take that challenge on, there are little but very little tiny things that make you feel good about yourself, sometimes.

Think about ordering a pizza by phone.

Imagine this
It’s Saturday afternoon, you are walking in the streets of Tokyo with your hair too long. There you are thinking “sh.t I want to find a hairdresser but no way man, I am not gonna let them rip me off”. Yep, exactly. Then imagine yourself having to go back home because you didn’t find the hairdresser your hair was begging you to find.
You must agree, that puts you in a certain unhappy mood. On top of that, walking by 5 trendy hair salons didn’t help (but did I really want to get my hair blue and yellow like the hairdresser guy?).

Anyway, there you are back home, and you are cold. Even though you had all this hair on your head, it still felt super cold out there.
Anyway, the day didn’t go well and now you are wondering what to do for the evening.

Go for it
Well you might have guessed, that was my last Saturday. For dinner, I then decided to put up my best Japanese ability and to make the most out of my language lessons.
After all, I did learn some weeks ago how to ask for 20 bottles of beer to be delivered to my house (don’t ask about the content of my Japanese classes!).

I took one of the brochures available in the house with a pizza delivery phone number on it and I called.
The woman answered with the famous “Moshi Moshi”.
I threw out my best line “1 pizza Quattro Italiano please” in Japanese of course. And there she started asking about a million things…all these words that flew at me...
But hey! I learnt it, I knew I just needed to sneak in my address and phone number. So I did!
A trouble sort of came when she asked me a question that wasn’t in my textbook. I am glad there were no camera around me because I must have seemed….lost!
After blindly answering all her questions with “hai” which means “yes” I think she understood that I didn’t need anything else. Then she repeated the order once more and I answered with my best “Hai”. This was the only time I knew what I was saying yes too.
So, after a few struggles, it sounded like the line was more quiet. I then thought it was time to hang up.
And guess what, it worked!!!

I must confess, having the pizza boy ringing the door bell felt good!!

- Nico
Gorillaz, Feel good Inc.