When in Doubt, Speak English

I love to visit non-English speaking countries. The people seem to be saying more important things than I hear in English. I want to know what they're saying. So I prepare to learn the language. My trips usually go like this:
1. Pick a country.
2. Buy books or CDs on how to speak that country's language.
3. Spend most of my prep time - not learning the language.
4. Bring my CDs or electronic translator on the plane to learn as much as I can on the trip to that county.
5. Mostly watch movies on the plane.
6. Listen to language CD's on the plane when I am sleepy because they say you learn more through your subconscious.
7. Arrive in the county wide-eyed and confused. I have no idea what the signs say or what the people are saying.
8. Get used to not knowing what is going on around me 75% of the time. The rest of the time, people are speaking English to me.
9. Get back on the plane vowing to learn the language.
10. Come home and rave about the county and that I'm going to go back the next year knowing the language.
11. Buy better language learning tools.
12. Put them on my shelf.
13. Go to a different county the next year (repeat steps 2 through 13)

I now have learning tools for Spanish, French and Italian. I do try to learn the languages - especially while driving in my car. I have basic Italian and Spanish CDs in my car right now - yet I still know limited words.

When I was in Costa Rica a few years ago doing some volunteer work, I had a small electronic translator with me. Unfortunately, my work included digging rocks out from along a road, building a wall around a cemetery and painting a kitchen. I found little on the translator that I could use. I did the usual "Ola'", "necessito cafe", and "bueno". After almost a week, I decided to expand my conversations and practiced a new phrase. When one of the Costa Ricans asked me how I was doing, I replied " Yo caliente" since it was very hot there. There was usually no response but that didn't stop me. The rest of the week when the workers were all sitting around pouring water on themselves because of the heat, I would walk up to them and say "Yo caliente", and again they would just look at me. Finally, the day before we were going home, one of the bi-lingual women came over to me and whispered, "did you know that you are telling them that you are horny"? Everyone was so polite there that for days no one told me that I was going around to all of the men making an inappropriate sexual come-on. I was glad to be going home before someone decided that if I was that horny they should help me out!

I do want to go back to Costa Rica and this time, I want to speak the language. (see numbers 2 through 13 above).