NAKAMURA RIKAKO<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"Well, learning to translate from quite a few languages, it seems I've picked up a few... misplaced words."</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div>I nodded, listening,<strong>"It must be nice to have learned so many languages that you get all confused and fit in the wrong words. I'm nothing like that, I only speak Japanese and a few scraps of English, of course we've only been taught English since starting here, less than two years so I'm not very good with it yet."</strong><br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"As for where I'm from, I came here from Germany. Beautiful place, I have to say, though some of the sights I saw coming here were just as beautiful..."</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div>Again I nodded, his life seemed very different to my own,<strong>"Germany? Ah... I don't know a great deal about it. Except we were on the same side in the war. Old friends then. In a way."</strong><br/><br/><em>Ew. Maybe that wasn't wise.</em><br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"Why I'm here is simple: to study, to grow, to change. At least that's how mein Vater keeps telling me..."</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><strong>"Well, yes, me too,"</strong>I laughed a little nervously and looked at Katra's back,<strong>"What I meant was... uhm... why Japan? And why <em>Sendai</em> specifically? Why were you selected to be in the first group of boys?"</strong><br/><br/>I listened attentively to his replies and soon we reached the shoe lockers where I<em>again</em>got my outdoor boots on.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"Eh! Horry up, zere's peepell stahrveeng, freezeeng to dehs ahnd leaveeng for ze tram!"</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><strong>"Hi, Silfa-san, are you all still here? I thought you would have gone ahead with Tsukishima-san."</strong><br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"Guten Mittag, I dohn't seenk I sãow you on ze bus. I'm Roberto Mendes da Silva. What do I caoull you? Do you Germenns do ze surname-san  seeng as well?"</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><strong>"<em>Gomen</em>, Silfa-san, this is... uhm... <em>sumimasen</em>, the name is hard... Alfredus Darsten-o. Darsteno-san. Yes. Darsteno-san, this is. Oh, forgive me, it's so strange having all these foreign people here."</strong>I giggled, hand over my mouth.<strong>"Hmm, Roberto de Silver? Oh, no! You just said it didn't you. Ah, <em>gomen, gomen!</em>"</strong><br/><br/>I felt a bit of an idiot.<br/><br/>After the introductions we went outside, all of us moving carefully over the slippery swept-clear main driveway towards the tram stop.<br/><br/><strong>"Watch your step!"</strong>I called to them as we went gingerly down the school steps.