It might spare your blushes to ask for the 'Gents' or 'Ladies' in public places - or even 'the loos'- though rest room would be understood by quite a few people - we get so much TV from the states.

English is so huge because it just accepts words - unlike - for instance - French which seems to resist change, and seems to engender a mental attitude which requires perfection from foreigners stumbling over their first phrases at the frontier.

Anne