Ehhh, the lovely part about travelling, is that if things go catastrophically wrong and you make an enemy instead of a friend...
Well, you're leaving!
You won't have to sit around dealing with the fallout for the rest of your life.
That was a very freeing realization. :)
Also, people tend to be more understanding when it comes to interacting with people who are clearly foreign -because it's not expected that they (or you) will understand all the unspoken cultural rules and customs.
Which means I tend to get along better with strangers when I'm travelling than I do with my own neighbors, who have expectations that I don't always know about and can't always meet.
Weird, but there you have it.
So.... it's less that I have social skills, and more that I abandoned any pretense to dignity, and cheerfully resigned myself to occasional failure.
Not really the same thing, ha ah ha ha. You should hear how awkward I am at work.
