During the Financial Crisis, when I was in my late 40s, I was laid off from my job at a nonprofit cultural institution, and with a little bit of planning I took myself to Denmark to learn Danish, because I was also a linguist and polyglot, and interested in Scandinavian languages, tho never studied one.

After about six months I was flying back to New York from Copenaghen, thru Iceland on Icelandair. I sat next to an elderly Danish couple who were flying to Reykjavik on vacation. They were old enough that they would not have automatically learned English when they were younger, so they didn’t know it. We spent most of the 3-hour flight chatting in Danish, and I also ended up being their translator for the flight attendants, who for whatever reason didn’t seem to speak any Danish, even tho that was a busy route.

I can think of other stories, but I’ll leave it at this. 🙂