When I arrived in Spain, I had high hopes for communication in the official language of the country for the first time since departing the United States. Unlike in Croatia, where there was pretty much zero chance of communication in anything other than English (Slavic languages are real hard), and Portugal, where I mastered the art of “obrigada” (and that was pretty much it), I did study Spanish in my youth. And not exactly an insignificant amount. I took at least two semesters of high school Spanish, followed up with some intermediate classes in college and even took a Spanish literature classes (In retrospect, I am not sure I actually finished that class). With all that study under my belt, I was wildly hopeful that I wouldn’t come across as an asshole American at every encounter with a barista.

Unfortunately, I figured out pretty quickly (like on day 1) that my Spanish was more than a smidge rusty. For the first few days, I worked on just remembering the appropriate hellos – Buenos días, buenas noches, buenas tardes – But the correct version of buenos tripped me up repeatedly, and I found myself grappling with conjugations for verbs. (Should I say “Quiero” first when I order? Is that right?? Is it buenas? Buenos? If I say the wrong one, will sound like a douche? Am I likely to sound like a douche regardless? Probably.)

I continued to brush up a bit with some internet study and a lil Duolingo, and then attempted to practice what I’d learned on unsuspecting grocery store clerks and restaurant waitstaff. And every time, the scene would go something like this…

Enter the cafe/shop/pizzaria. I am full of enthusiasm and determination to give my Spanish another go.

“¡Hola! ¡Buenos días! ¿Cómo estás?!” I would chirp. All smiles. All enthusiasm. This is going great. I’m doing the thing!

And they would respond in kind, asking me what I’d like to order. Everyone’s still on the same page. And then I would place my carefully practiced coffee order in Spanish in a properly-conjugated sentence. Work your accent, work your accent….

“¿Puedo tener un Americano por favor?”

And that right there – THAT is the moment where I have effectively fooled this person into believing I am capable of complex communication in their language.

I’m still in the middle of congratulating myself for my coffee order, and this individual immediately machine-guns me with something in Spanish that I am totally unprepared for. I’m sure these are not hard sentences. They are likely questions like — Do you want milk? Or Would you like that for take-away? Or in one instance, I’m sorry, but we’re closed now.

But it doesn’t matter. Those are sentences in Spanish I am woefully unprepared for. Enthusiasm vanishes.

So I panic… And I stare at them, slack-jawed, silently.

My face basically says Buffering… Buffering.

I know some of the words they’ve volleyed at me, but they are not close enough to the surface, so I’m searching the database in my mind. Leche? Hielo? Cerrado? I know these words!! BUT WHAT DO THEY MEAN?!

And after an uncomfortable amount of time, this poor clerk who’s watching me melt down in silence offers me an out.

“English?” they ask with sympathetic eyes. I nod and give them a wide, toothy smile of apology. Because I’m embarrassed and my face is starting to get hot and I desperately want out of this now. Then the barista/clerk/shop owner proceeds to perform the entire transaction in perfect English without any hesitation or flaws in grammar.

In many other countries, people routinely speak two languages, and many times – more than two. In Spain, your bartender, bus driver and cashier all probably speak two languages. This was true in Croatia and Portugal, and I guarantee it will be true in a lot more countries I visit this year. I recognize that I’m benefitting from that reality, but honestly, it doesn’t feel very good to me. And considering how much time I’ve spent over the course of my life trying to learn this particular language, now that I’m here, it feels like a pretty major failure on my part. I never presumed that the rest of the world would just know English. I thought we might struggle along together to do these little daily transactions — buying food and coffee and beers — by pointing and smiling and the occasional assistance from the Google Translate app.

But many people do know English, and although I’m grateful that they can meet me where I am with English, I’m disappointed that I cannot do the same for them in their language, particularly in Spanish because I’ve spent time in my life studying to be able to do just that. And I can’t.

So after struggling through several of these interactions, I decided to rectify the situation — as much as I could in a short period of time. I might not be able to learn the language of every country I visit, but with Spanish, some of the words are already there — just swimming around in the deep recesses of my high school mind.

I signed up for eight 2-hour classes during my month in Spain with the Hispania Escuela de Español in Valencia (10/10. Would recommend.) and joined a class of folks from all over the world all trying to understand Spanish and struggling like I was. I was heartened by my new classmates from Japan, Ireland, China, Uzbekistan and other corners of the globe — all buffering along with me. The teacher spoke entirely in Spanish in these classes. The more time I spent there listening to him, the more I understood. I even started to respond in un-practiced half-sentences. Sometimes.

I’m heading to Michigan for the holidays, and then South Africa for the New Year. But I’m hoping to continue studying on my own and get a tutor to work with me over the coming months. The back half of our trip takes us through Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico. It would be really nice to leave the slack-jawed American tourist behind, and meet my barista’s machine-gun Spanish with a sentence or two in response.