re: How easy is it to get around mainland Europe speaking English only?

There are certainly areas where people don't speak English. Don't be an a-hole and you'll make it through okay. Only place I even recognized stinkeye for not speaking the native language was a restaurant in Frankfurt. But frick that place, their beer was fruity and overpriced. The Parisians were nicer than I expected.

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the French seem particularly annoyed when you only speak English

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I ran into that problem when there, it got worse after I told him, well if it wasn't for Americans you would be speaking German.

If you have money to spend they will speak English.

Hablo dinero.

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If you can manage to butcher the language just enough, they will speak English so they dont have to hear you destroy their language anymore...

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If they hear an accent at all then they will speak English

First restaurant I ate at in Paris the waiter could tell the girl I was with couldn't speak French. When he found out we were American he apologized profusely for their menu only being in French and not French/English.

The biggest thing to realize is that the French value their privacy when they are eating so the servers are very hands off when you eat compared to the US. It will seem they hardly care about you but they consider meals to be your time with friends and family and don't want to interrupt.

Went to Portugal this past October and had no problems at all. In fact they loved that we were Americans. People bent over backwards to accommodate us. Great place to visit

Not hard

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Well, shite. I was hoping to get into some human trafficking in Bulgaria.

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I've been to Bulgaria, in rural areas hardly anyone spoke English, but the friend I was with spoke Bulgarian. In Sofia it was hit or miss, but nowhere near the % that you get in bigger Western Europe cities.

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my dad asked a random guy for directions(in French) and the guy spit on him and called him a "stupid fricking American"

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Sorry to get away from your topic OP but I had a similar story while walking down Lan Kwai Fong bar street in Hong Kong with my brother.

I asked some random guys, who I thought were American, for directions. They were French (scarves and skinny cigs should have given it away) and started immediately bashing America/President Bush and in a smart @ss tone started asking if I had any bombs to drop or countries to destroy. Called us stupid fricking Americans. Yada, yada, yada. It was ridiculous.

Before we could even reply two guys stood up and knocked out two of the French guys and threw one across the street. They were from Finland and had been sitting at a table next to these French guys.

We ended up going to an ice bar across the street where we shot vodka and they explained their hatred for the French and admiration for America. Kept apologizing profusely for the French behavior.

Pretty damn awesome