Oooh Oooh Aaah Aaah

I've been working on my Russian for months now.  I took several years of it in college.  I've worked with it.  I can read it.  And yet, I still can't speak it!  Something takes over my brain whenever I try to speak to an actual Russian.  Yesterday, a Russian woman asked me where the Polish embassy was.  Now, I understood her fine.  I had just passed the Polish embassy two blocks back.  In Russian I would only have to say "straight ahead."  I know how to say "straight ahead" in Russian.  Everything was set up for a win-win encounter.  Nope.  Instead, I pointed in the general direction of that half of the earth and made monkey sounds.  And she slowly backed away without taking her eyes off of me until safely on the other side of the street.  I felt awful.  Oh well, more studying.