Dear Google, I am not Italian

Yes, I have shared an office with Italians for years at a time. I am addicted to coffee. I have even tried to learn Italian. However, I am not Italian.

Mystified? So was I, since Picasaweb decided a couple of days ago to start speaking to me in Italian. All other Google products seem happy to continue treating me as my boring old English-speaking self, but not so Picasa. It had invested me with a mysterious Mediterranean alter ego, with which it strenuously tried to communicate thusly: "Fotografiile mele". I decided to leave it alone in the spirit of "Picasa, heal thyself". The dam broke today. A friend, after months of procrastination, decided this morning to share pictures he'd taken over the last year or so. To view said pictures, I had to converse with Picasa. Which said: "Cine vede porecla dvs.?"

At this point, two things became clear:
(1) I was in for a small spell of diagnosis and (hopefully) fixage.
(2) This language can't be Italian. Exhibit A:"Ce reprezintă Căutarea publică?" Count the diphthongs.

Off I went, navigating by approximate translation of menu text, and hoping I didn't end up deleting all my pictures (and believing that dear Google would display large blinky "Are you sure?" dialogs before letting me do anything truly destructive). A short, but apprehensive silence followed. At the end of which I discovered that Picasa had decided to speak to me not in Italian, but in *Romanian*. I can barely pronounce Ceauşescu, and my idea of famous Romanians is Vlad III a.k.a Dracula and Nadia Comaneci. Oh well, I'm now back to speaking English with Picasa, which said brightly "Your settings have been updated!"

In the spirit of the day, here's a little more about Romania. Oh, and I don't think Google is mining my data to update my language settings.