English, quoi?

There was an American invasion on the bus tonight.
Normally, Rouen has very few native English speakers, let alone Americans, riding on their metro system. After being surrounded by French nearly 24/7, I get so blown away when someone starts speaking English. However what is even stranger about these situations is that I can feel my "American-ness" coming out. All I can think of doing is going up and talking to them. It is this weird urge to take off my French mask and rejoin my fellow Anglophones.
The whopping two times this has happened, I have fought the urge and remained silent. Looking back, I am glad I fought the urge.
When I was in the Vatican Museum, Anel and I were chatting in the cafe and a couple walked up to us. After explaining that they heard us speaking English, they explained that it is so funny that we were running into each other. After chuckling a bit I asked them where they were from. New Orleans. Since Louisiana is not exactly close to New York (Anel lives in the city) and there are many many American tourists, I didn't think it was quite amazing that we ran into each other but I played along just the same. They were really nice but what they didn't know was that for Anel and I, Rome felt like a mini America. I hadn't heard so much English since I left the states two months ago. Although they felt a sense of relief hearing English, for us, hearing English is just bizarre.