Successful multilingualism?

I ended up in Luxembourg by total accident. One of those typical Italian things, I'd say, which made my blood boil at first, but then turned out to be the coolest experience I could ever imagine. The chance to discuss about youth, democracy, arts and culture with a group of leaders from five different countries was unique and highly inspirational. Bloody lucky, I repeat. 

Though what I wanted to reflect upon on this blog, is the funny multilinguistic experiment Luxembourg appears to be. The first thing that struck me was the fact that local newspapers were litterally bilingual. One side French, other side German. Whereas in Belgium they are either in French or Flemish. The two together, never. Luxembourgish people speak three languages, French, German and Luxembourgish, the latter being an interesting sort of German with a lot of French in it, and with an equally interesting history. Funnily enough, some (few) locals, despite trilingual, may speak no word of English!

Having said that, the population of Luxembourg is very much international, with almost 40% of the total population coming from abroad. The Portuguese and Italian communities are visibly the biggest ones and Portuguese newspapers are available even at a bus stop. Now, imagine this: you are Portuguese and married a Serbian who came to Luxembourg as asylum seeker from former Yugoslavia. Your kid speaks Serbian and Portuguese at home, the three official languages of the state at school and in society, and he can of course speak English...so six. Six languages he didn't even choose to learn. They were a given. Just fantasy? Nope. This case is actually reality. And I am amazed!