At the hotel reception desk, there was a brochure for a company called Adventure Bikes advertising bicycle tours. There were about 5 different tours, and they specifically highlighted that the bikes were Scott brand. I, being no fool, asked the receptionist on duty to call and book a tour for me. She did, but for some reason started speaking to them in English, and then just handed the phone over to me. The thing was, each of the tours shown in the brochure and on the website took place on its own strictly specified day. And since I had been nursing the idea for quite a while, I was only able to sign up for our last day in Crete, Saturday, when there was a tour that more or less suited me. I should have called earlier instead of being an indecisive wimp. On the other hand, we had been busy before that — driving around, and before that we were acclimatizing, so let it be as it turned out — the main thing is that it worked out.
I had almost never spoken English on the phone. It's not an easy thing to do, but if the person on the other end isn't a native speaker or some Indian-sounding guy, but rather an average person who has studied and knows it reasonably well, you can communicate, albeit with some asking to repeat things.
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