Language

I've spent a lot of time thinking about languages lately, I guess because I've been pretty much dumped into the middle of a whole bunch of them. This is my first time being in a place where Englisb is not the dominant language (I'm excluding Mexico here, sorry Mexico), and it's a little disorienting sometimes. So far on this trip, I've been around English, German, Italian, French, and Portuguese.

The hardest part of this whole trip has been each and every time I cross into a new country. I have a little freak out moment where I worry if I'll be able to navigate myself to my hostel using he public transportation. Will I understand the signs? Will people be able to help me? Will I be able to get people to understand that I need help? It's daunting!

Before this trip, I knew the basic pleasantries in a few languages. Hi, bye, please, thank you, do you speak English?, etc. I could say those things in Spanish and French, and that was it. German, forget about it. English was so widely spoken in Switzerland that it was like the German language didn't even need to exist. In French, I can still say only those things and that's about it. In Italian I think I can get by quite well if I need to. I can't have a full on conversation, of course, but I can handle myself as a customer, ask for directions, give directions, deal with numbers, etc. but Portuguese? Its intense! It's the one language where I didn't know a single word before I came here. I had to look up "hello". It's similar to Spanish, but then completely different as well!

I guess one of the benefits of all of these languages is that they've kind of given me a bit of security. In most touristy areas, people who want to sell you something or convince you to come into their restaurant or just otherwise hassle you will often approach you in English, because they can tell you're clearly not from around these parts. I've found that if I throw out a Bonjour or Ciao to their Hello, they mostly leave me alone. Before, I was just a rich American walking around. Now, I've maybe created a bit of uncertainty in their minds. Maaaaaaaybe I'm European, ad therefore not as much of a sucker, so maybe they should just move on to another target.