The problem there was that their exaggerated gestures incorporated machine guns. When I see a loaded weapon, the part of my brain that deals with anything other than "that's a loaded weapon" shuts down
They could have been speaking in the slowest, most optimal English or French and I wouldn't have been able to tell you what they were saying.
I think this was outside of Milan. It was like 15 years ago, I don't remember.
They pulled these African guys off the train and shoved them facedown on the platform with the machine guns pointed at the backs of their heads. It looked like one of those WWII movies where the concentration camp escapees are rounded up, shoved on the ground and shot. It looked exactly like that to my terrified mind, actually. Also, my parents don't speak Italian so they were loudly asking me what was happening, and I didn't have a clue, so that made the whole thing even more frantic and stressful.
My brother got yelled at by an Italian shopkeeper for not buying some racecar model. My mom slipped on some steps and fell into the Adriatic sea, and had to walk around Venice with a giant seaweed smear on the back of her white pants. We just didn't do well in general in Italy.
Back on more familiar turf, Germany and France, we weren't quite as Griswold-y. Except when my brother insisted upon posing next to a FAHRTGASSE sign in Heidelberg.