Italian voices in the train

Here is another Italian anecdote, this one very recent. This morning, I was in the train when I saw a former colleague who now works somewhere else. There were two girls on the other side of the wagon, early twenties I'd say, who were chatting in what I recognised to be Italian. My former colleague thought it was Spanish, he was wrong. When the train conductor came to sell tickets, he, and we, discovered that they were indeed Italian, and knew close to no English. They were trying to buy tickets for London, but could not understand the price and the fact that they could buy peak time tickets and non peak time tickets. And then my former colleague and I tried to help. It was humiliating for me: I could barely say a word. I know nothing of Italian numbers, and how to say the time in Italian. So my friend with his rough Spanish ended up being more helpful. Moral of the story: I really need to improve my Italian.