The other morning I was going to work and I saw a car with a front German plate. This is not as surprising as it seems, because as you know, many states only require the back plate to be official, and there's a large number of cars with flags, sports teams logos, or foreign plates (especially French and German) up front. As the car was parking, I walk to its back and I see, to my surprise, that in the back it also has a German plate, and a different one to boot.
This is now quite surprising, so since the guy (a uniformed soldier, Hispanic, last name Quiñones displayed in his breast) was walking towards me, I tell him: "We don't see too many cars with German plates around here." Very friendly he answers: "Yes, I just got back from being stationed in Germany for two years." So I ask him the 64-million-dollar question: "So why are the front and back plates different?" He laughs and explains to me that since in his home state of Connecticut only the back plate was required, he had bought in Germany an old plate and put it up front just for display, but that having just arrived to the US he still had not had time to change the back German plate for the Conn. one. We keep walking together and talking in Spanish, me and soldier Quiñones, he was very nice and friendly. And not stupid at all, since he had taken advantage of his post in Germany to bring back a nice BMW with him.
