Parle ingles?

I’m going to rant now, you’ve been warned.)
We’ve been in Italy for a couple days now and I’m starting to get cranky and some of my fellow citizens. I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t speak Italian. My background is in French, and I can barely put together a sentence in Italian with my phrasebook. I get by with a lot of pointing and charades. For buying the train tickets, I used the phrasebook and wrote down “Please may I have reservations for Rome, on Wednesday, June 18th?” in Italian. (This got a chuckle from the ticket man.) I buttress everything with “Per favore” and “Grazie” (Please and Thank you). I can count up to five, and then I guess using Spanish (Italian and Spanish numbers are somewhat close.) Again, charades are helpful. I’m in Italy, not in America. While 99% of the Dutch learn English in school, not all Italians do.

It drives me nuts to see Americans walk up to Italians, either in the train stations or stores and just start speaking English. No “Do you speak English?” no “Per favore” – nothing. Their culturally insensitivity is embarrassing. You’re telling me they can spend thousands of dollars on airfare, hotel and food, but can be bothered with a ten-dollar phrasebook? They won’t even say “good-bye” in Italian, like “Ciao” is so hard to remember. (I’ll bet half of them are fans of the Sopranos.)

And people wonder why other counties don’t like Americans.

Enough with the soapbox.