I’m actually embarrassed to admit this, but prior to our Greece trip I had never visited a place where English was not the primary language. Once we landed at the Madrid airport, I knew we were in for a treat. Sadly, I’ve forgotten almost four year’s worth of high school Spanish classes. Yo tengo un mal…memory.
(Somewhere in the world, my high school Spanish teacher just cringed.)
But I digress. Athens was a complete cluster of languages and I quickly discovered a very amusing game that I call: Can You Guess What Language I Speak?
It started in the elevator. Brett was sleeping in our room and I had just finished some lovely window shopping on a main street near our hotel. I stepped onto the elevator with an older, English speaking couple. They were chatting about the beautiful elevator mirrors and joking about the convenience of being able to check themselves out on the ride up. They smiled at me and I smiled back, although I remained completely silent all the way to the 6th floor. I don’t know why I was so quiet, I could have easily joined their conversation. In fact, I have a tendency to join random conversations, typically without an invitation.
But for whatever reason, I said nothing. As we arrived at the 6th floor, the elevator beeped and opened. I took two steps off and heard the women behind me say slowly, and perhaps a little louder than was required, “HAAAVE….A….NIICE…DAAAY…”
The elevator door closed behind me and I smiled to myself. For no reason at all, other than to just be silly, I’m almost positive I had convinced that woman that I didn’t speak English.
This happened two other times on our trip, although both by pure mistake and not as a result of my juvenile antics. One woman approached me at the airport and started shouting something in Spanish so fast I literally burst out laughing due to sheer confusion (see: sleep deprivation). I also had a woman approach me in the lobby of our hotel in Athens and start speaking Greek to me. Apparently, some people think I’m Spanish and some people think I’m Greek. The other 98% guess correctly and say “hello” on the first try.
Moral of the story: you should try my little game next time you’re visiting a non-English speaking country. If nothing else, it will make your elevator rides that much more interesting.
I have a teensy bit of a speech impediment and people are CONSTANTLY asking me if I’m Russian. I once pretended I was in a used book store, I guess because I was bored, and I got three free books that day! I always feel nervous going in there now, even though it was over a year ago and in another town, because what if someone recognizes me and asks what I’m doing back in the US?
Sarabell´s last [type] ..Working Part-Time Makes Every Post Sound Like a Day Off Post
I LOVE this game. I totally “play” all the time when travelling. It’s the best, and makes you feel great when tourists don’t recognize you as a fellow tourist. Also: those pastries. I die.
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This made me laugh so hard. I typically visit countries where white is the minority (philippines, africa) so they pretty much know I don’t speak their language. I need to go to a more white country and try this game. But I am pretty sure I stick out like a sore thumb so in theory this sounds way funner than it would be for me. I love your Greece stories and am pretty darn jealous. I hope you’re having a wonderful time, juvenile antics and all. =]
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While in Israel, I took to saying “Kama?” or “How much?” whens hopping, but then vendors thought I was Israeli & answered in Hebrew & I DON’T SPEAK HEBREW, so then I had to embarrassingly ask them, “Sorry… how much?” Stupid American…
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I play this game ALL THE TIME, everywhere in the world. This game becomes a lot more fun when you can understand another language, too–I secretly always hope that someone will talk about me behind my back in French and I shall understand and I shall be able to totally call them out in French! It hasn’t happened yet, but someday…it shall be a very exciting moment for me.
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When we went to Japan I was so scared that we’d feel completely isolated because we couldn’t speak Japanese. I found myself pointing at things a lot and smiling. It was a pleasant surprise how many people did speak English and how helpful they were.
It’s good that people can mistake you for different ethnicities, it means you look exotic! lol
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OK, I’m leaving for Europe on Thursday. I’m going to try this for sure!
hahahha loved your story. We’re going to Greece at the end of summer. We had the same thing happen when traveling in Italy
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AMAZING photos in this post. Love.
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I live in Greece so I can totally imagine this happening, this happened to me in Germany when I was staying with friends, I went to the supermarket once and bought some stuff. The cashier said something to me in German, I smiled and nodded, after which he charged me 50cents (apparently for the paper bag I said yes to), and he followed by saying something else in German, after which I simply looks at the amount on the register, and simply paid, smiled, and left, minimal eye contact, it was a very awkward experience. :p