> How's this for cool?
> I finally carried on a conversation in Spanish.
> Howard

First, let me say that having a conversation in a foreign language IS cool. I, too, would like to be able to speak Spanish. But what got me answering to your message is that here in Finland carrying a conversation in a foreign language is not so uncommon. Especially here, in the west coast of Finland, where about 20% of people are Swedish-speaking. Almost every day I carry a conversation in a language that is foreign to one of us. Usually that is the Swedish-speaking person speaking Finnish, but sometimes it's me speaking Swedish. A conversation in English or German can also happen right in the middle of the street in the middle of the day (though I'm not really good in German, and luckily that's more rare).