Italian?

I work for an American company that was acquired by a Belgian company that had previously acquired a German company and then was acquired by a Dutch company that's slowly moving all our Engineering jobs to a Polish subsidiary. Oh, yes, and there's a Scottish company in the mix somewhere, and a group of Portuguese software contractors.

All of which is to say I work with a lot of Europeans, and I'm amazed at how the EU has changed Europe. Moving from one European nation to another is now as easy as crossing state lines here, and my younger colleagues all seem to start out their adult lives by moving to a new country.

Their common language is English, which is both happy and sad for us Americans. There was an exotic thrill to visiting someplace where people couldn't talk with me, even in shops and airports, and I'll miss it.

I suspect we're not going to need much Italian on our trip.

But I want a little anyway, so I've been going through Pimsleur's Italian CDs in the car. When we were gardening this weekend, Elizabeth was listening with me.

We don't know much yet: just things like Do you want to eat at the restaurant now? and I don't understand Italian. Do you speak English?

That second line might come in handy.