Ah, Geography

[Great.  It just took me 3 tries to spell 'Geography'.  In the title.  I got it right first time, in this sentence].

9-yr-old boy, whose dad sits in on the lesson.  Boy has a pair of Iranian grandparents.  He'd accidentally brought his brother's violin, 2 sizes too big for him, so we were doing some theory and general knowledge at the start of the lesson.  We started with Barcarolle, by Jacques Offenbach.

Me [inner smirk - this is always entertaining]: Who wrote this piece?
Boy [squinting]: Jack...wez... Off... batch...
Me: I know it doesn't look like it, but his first name is zhark, and his second name is Off-en-bark.  [boy looks skeptical] Trust me.  Where do you think he's from?
Boy: Iran?
Me: Umm... no.  His first name is... [stunned look on boy's face] from France, and his second name is German.  He's actually German.

We then went on to talk about the name of the piece, and what it means.  It's from a French opera, which doesn't really help.

Me: So, we have this guy with a French first name, and a German last name, writing an opera in French... [boy starts to giggle]... and this song is a boat song from Venice [his dad laughs].  Do you know where Venice is?
Boy: France?
Me: Er - no.  This country starts with the letter "I".
Boy [quickly]: Iran!
Me: I knew you were going to say that!  No, this country is where pizza comes from... and spaghetti... Ferraris [running out of ideas]
Boy's dad: Where are Italians from?
Boy: Oh, Italy!!!

We then had a delightful discussion about Venice and not riding a bike to school through the canal.  Unless it's a hover bike.