My wife had a very similar experience, except in her case, we were awaiting a flight somewhere outside the US—I think in Asia—and she carried on a conversation

My wife had a very similar experience, except in her case, we were awaiting a flight somewhere outside the US—I think in Asia—and she carried on a conversation with a group of flight attendants in Spanish (her second language, but she's fluent). Quite a ways in it emerged that they were from an Italian airline and speaking Italian. They were no doubt (we imagine) well used to speakers of Romance languages especially Spanish making themselves understood... she however was quite entertained. (This being HN I suppose it's de rigeur to cite Richard Feynman's bit about Italian dialectical differences leaving room for him to entertain himself by amiably yelling made-up Italian to people in his neighborhood, who chalked up his unintelligibility to such differences, not realizing they were being trolled as it were...)