Myoland 2025-09-13T15:36:36Z
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I'll never forget that humid evening in Rome, sitting in a quaint trattoria, utterly humiliated. I'd spent months memorizing phrasebooks and conjugating verbs, yet when the waiter asked about my dietary preferences, my mind went blank. I stammered out "Io... mangio..." before resorting to pathetic hand gestures, pointing randomly at the menu. The pity in his eyes as he gently corrected my pronunciation of "senza glutine" felt like a physical blow. That night, I lay in my Airbnb, scrolling throug
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Rain lashed against my tiny attic window as I stared at the flickering screen, my stomach churning. Tomorrow I'd face Madame Dubois' dinner party - a legendary test for expats where textbook French crumbles like stale baguettes. My Rosetta Stone drills felt useless against the rapid-fire slang and cultural references that left me stranded during last month's bakery humiliation. I needed to understand real people, not sanitized classroom dialogues.