I wouldnāt really stress the āa lotā there, really.
You wonāt have to go far to find an English speaking country in Europe as there are over 370 million English speakers out of about 450 million EU residents!
Granted that is the EU, not Europe in general, but itās also people in general, of all ages, and not adult people who work a service job. Sure, in some backwater Russian town that is technically in Europe you might have a problem with getting understood in English, but āproblemā is āŠŃŠ¾Š±Š»ŠµŠ¼Š°ā in Russian. And that reads as āproblemaā. āToiletā is āŠ¢ŃŠ°Š»ŠµŃā = ātualetā.
So I really canāt imagine a scenario in which you canāt communicate āa problem with the toiletā without dragging someone in to the loo and shoving their face in your pile.
Well, if we reduce the requirements from knowing English to being able to understand ātoilet! problem!ā then of course.
Non-english speakers are not evenly distributed in different countries, that is why it still depends a lot on where you are searching, and in places where thereās almost no demand for speaking English, there will be much less people working in services speaking English.
For instance, you can take a look at Wikipediaās list of countries by English speaking population, Italy has ā13% of speakers, Spain has ā22%, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, and Portugal all fall between 25ā27%%
And itās not like you can just go and every fourth will be speaking English fluently, I would expect most of them to be in big cities or capitals.
And itās not like you can just go and every fourth will be speaking English fluently
And itās not like only 13% of Italians speak English. 13% of them identify as having a certain level of skill in English.
Thereās a massive difference in having enough of a language to communicate basic things to customers in service jobs and being fluent. When I was working in taxi dispatch, some 15 years ago, we had a few 60-70 year old women who would say they donāt speak a lick of English. Yet because they know their job and the interactions and have common sense and live in a world where you canāt really avoid being exposed to English, they would manage basic level orders, but they preferred saying just āmomentā and transferring the call to me or someone else who spoke English better.
The point here being that even on the telephone, these non-English speaking service workers managed to handle basic things in English.
Now think about the fact that for Italy, tourism brings in about 10% of their GDP.
If you think thereās a cafe you can go to in Italy where you wonāt be served a coffee when you say āIād like one coffee pleaseā, please let me know.
The requirement for this āhilariousā joke, especially if we take OPās greentexted version isnāt fluency in English. Itās about communication on a Swedish ferry. And theyāre not really Swedish as much as Finnish&Swedish.
I live at the Finnish end of the trip, in Turku. Iāve been on these specific boats (yes, the one in the picture as well) several times.
First off, the dude wouldnāt be able to find staff like that, heād literally have to walk several decks to the nearest employee in all likelyhood, unless this is happening right when theyāre getting to the harbour.
Secondly, the nearest employees would probably not be native Swedish speakers, as the cleaners who come to clean the cabins in the harbour are mostly immigrants, as itās not a very respected job.
Thirdly, if he wasnāt in harbour, heād be speaking to the actual crew, who literally have to be able to speak English as a part of their job requirement. (Iāve read Viking Lineās wanted ads.) Not only that, they strongly prefer you to be able to speak all three; English, Finnish and Swedish.
What kind of a fucking caveman would one have to be to not even try to speak English before dragging someone into their cabin to show a shit to them. Which would be very hard, given that the crew arenāt cleaners and they wouldnāt follow you several decks down to see your shit, all in utter silence while you refuse to even attempt communication, despite the member of crew definitely saying something like āwhat can I help you withā.
I met a cleaning lady in London who couldnāt speak English.
It happened last year in a nice hotel, and I found out as tried to ask for a towel.
Tbh it was kind of funny to think about it later, the one place you would not expect this to happen is London, yet itās the most logical place that this would happen due to the insanely high demand for workers for these jobs.
One of my friends read this very same greentext back then when it was new and he told it to our friend group like it happened to him. Everyone laughed their asses off and had him as a person that knew how to laugh at themselves. Years later, while doomscrolling, I ended up watching a Instagram reel of a standup routine with this very same joke. We were devastated when I broke the news that our humble friend spun a web of lies.
As someone that used to be tasked with clearing other peopleās shit at work, hereās how you fix a clogged toilet without a plunger:
first of all DO NOT FLUSH! Stay tf away from the handle on the toilet until the clog is cleared. shutoff the water if possible, there should be a valve between the toilet and the wall that you turn 90Ā°. Even then thereās still water in the tank, so I repeat do not flush!
If the clog isnāt 100% and some water can slowly drain through, leave it for a few minutes and come back. You want the water level in the bowl as low as possible. Next, fill a small trash can with hot water. not boiling, just the hottest you can get from the tap. Now dump that hot water in the toilet bowl. Be quick about it, but not so quick that you canāt stop yourself from overflowing
The hot water and large volume helps break things up. manually pouring you can dump a lot more water in the bowl a lot faster than flushing normally will without the risk of overflowing.