When I was a young hacker, around 2002, I went for a couple weeks hike in the Greek mountains north of Delphi with little more than a map and a backpack. I wand

When I was a young hacker, around 2002, I went for a couple weeks hike in the Greek mountains north of Delphi with little more than a map and a backpack. I wandered through a lot of tiny villages, slowly disappearing as the youth all moved to the cities. Each place o would show up and get led to The One Who Speaks English, and then have a truly unique conversation. In one village the English speaker was an American oil drilling engineer who changed course to become a philosophy professor, and then changed course again to live out his retirement in this tiny Greek mountain town. I really regret not staying longer there. In the next town, the English speaker was a guy who had left 30 years ago to work in the Canadian fishing industry, and only returned a week previously. He translated for a lot of the family elders, who were reaaally old and remembered doing the yearly pilgrimage on foot through the mountain passes. (Then I came to a town and chatted with a random person... When I described where I had been and where I was going, she crossed herself and begged me to turn back! Felt like a scene from a Dracula knock off...) And finally, I came to a very remote village, where I was housed by an Canadian woman who had lived in the village for like sixty years and forgotten all of her English! (Which was communicated through a combination of artifacts, drawing, and pantomime.) Which is to say, you've gotta get real far off the beaten path to find places where no one speaks English. And even then, people are helpful and fascinating.