Almost every Monday we have a tour group with 2-4 buses stay at the hotel for a night, on their way to visit the "Enchanted Canyonlands of the Southwest". Usually we have an Italian Bus, a French Bus, and then sometimes we get Australians.
The other day, one of the Italian guests came to the desk and started asking a question....in Italian... I looked at him blankly for a few minutes until he was done. Then I told him I didn't speak Italian, and he responded with....well, more Italian. I've had similar experiences with our French and Spanish speaking guests. Almost always they're sentence starts with "Is Possible...?" i.e. "Is Possible....to aah, internet??" which is fine, because that, I can understand. But with this gentleman, there was no working through the phonetics. He kept repeating himself, and I would point to things, or answer with what I thought he was asking, but eventually he just muttered something under his breath, then turned and walked away. If there was ever a time when I wish I could download a language learning system directly into my brain, this is it. Unfortunately, I can't draw on my experiences in Foreign Northern California to aide my translation skills... not that I'm bitter for going English Speaking or anything...
I would get calls at work from French-Canadians all the time. They would ask in a thick French accent if I spoke French. When I'd tell them no, (all I got out of Broadhead's class was a fear of eyepatches) they'd drop the accent and speak in perfect English. What the?
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