Years back, I use to cover Europe and had taken Latin at University. Was use to stumbling through a language as there were enough common roots that I could parse enough words to sort of make sense of things. Got a work project in Tokyo and jumped at the chance. I picked up a cheap translation book and attempted to order some sort of rice bowl with meat and a beer evening after evening on my first few trips out there. Every time, I got ... something. Never what I was actually thinking it was. It was very odd to not understand any written or spoken word. Folks were very kind but it was so very odd to not understand more than a few common phrases.

This was also a point in time where our shop started insisting on receipts for travel expenses. I always got something that had a number on it, but lord knows what it actually said. Was rather a snarky moment when I handed over the stack of receipts all in Japanese.

I really miss the travel...