Broken French

I loved working at the Chalet in Switzerland. There was just enough work to keep me busy, but not too much to ever begin to stress me out or overwhelm me. I enjoyed the opportunity to occasionally practice my French as well, although not nearly as much as I had hoped since the majority of people who came through spoke English, either as their native language, or just better as a second language than French was for me. One evening I had a older man come through who wanted to book 5 dorms, for him and 4 of his "workers." This is what I gathered from a conversation we had in French, as he spoke no English whatsoever. We proceeded with the booking and the exchange of information and money, but then he started to ask other questions that reached beyond my French vocabulary. Fortunately there was a girl in the room from Switzerland who was fluent in French, so she came to my rescue. We figured out what the man needed and I showed him and the other four guys to their room, mostly just pointing to the showers and toilets on the tour with a few key words thrown in. When I returned from the "tour," I asked my friend I thanked my friend for her help and mentioned that I wasn't sure why I'd had such a hard time figuring out what the man was saying. That's when I informed that the man wasn't Swiss, or even French - he was Italian, and his French was as broken as mine!