How The Office is breaking cultural barriers

So, we buy our ferry tickets to Patras, Greece from Bari, Italy.
We do this about 6 hours before the ferry leaves. (Jeopardy theme music, please). It's hot outside, we don't want to lug our backpacks around in the heat, so we go upstairs to the restaurant/bar at the ferry port to grab some food and pass the time.
We finish eating, Leslie draws, I read, and then we decide to relocate to the downstairs sitting area to pass some more time.
And that's when we took the plunge.
I took out my iPOD and we shared my headphones to watch The Office. Yes, it's THAT good.
So here we are watching a third season episode when a pack of almost 10 Italian guys from Naples arrives and they fill the seats around us. (The room was almost identical to an airport gate).
Well, here we are, laughing at this little black box, and they wanted to know what the heck was going on. So one of them taps me on the knee and says something in Italian that I couldn't understand, but it sure sounded good. I could see he was curious as to what we were doing, so I hand him my shiny Apple product.
From what Leslie and I had seen so far, iPOD's are not common in Europe. In fact, I don't think we'd seen anyone using an iPOD since we arrived in London. We'd seen people listening to music on their cell phones, but beyond that, nothing.
"Filma!" they say. Yup, we're watching a film...kind of.
And the conversation begins.
One of them tells us that he is an actor in a soap opera, and laughing, we tell him to prove it. So he does.
He recruits one of his amigos and gets up and acts out an entire scene in Italian. We couldn't understand a word - but he had great passion. We clap.
The actor spoke the most English, so we had to communicate primarily through him. (Which was actually unfortunate, because a couple of the other guys were pretty cute...)
They were all taking the ferry together to Greece on vacation. None of them had any bags - only a deck of cards which they shared between their group, playing various poker games (they later told us they love Texas Hold'em).
The actor points to one of his friends and jokingly tells us that he's gay, and to another one telling us that he has lots of luck with the ladies.
He points to another and another, giving them labels like "the fat one," "the tall one," or "the skinny one."
They all laughed, and they all understood their English labels, but none of them were offended, it was just a part of their close comradery. And of course, they teased the actor back in Italian.
We want to know how the actor characterizes himself. If he labels all of his friends, then what is his label?
"The Italian Stallion!" he says, head high in the air, and Leslie and I double over laughing as the rest of the group of guys repeat the words with Italian accents. Ah, one English phrase commonly known among Italians. Figures they would know that! =)
He shows us his wallet, including his drivers' license and his tanning membership (for the winter, he tells us).
Then they entertain us with card tricks. A few of them tell us that this is how they make money, and then proceed to "dazzle" us with their magic. It was fun.
And then Leslie turns the tables and impresses the "Italian Stallions" with a trick she knows. We had obviously gained their respect. (Props to Leslie for that one!)
This group was great - and we loved the way these Italians interacted with each other, and with us. They were so friendly and tried so hard to communicate with us, though even the actor's English was pretty rocky. They seemed like they were such close friends and just fun to be around.
We found out they were boarding the same ferry as we were, but their destination was another city in Greece.
We boarded the ship separately from they guys, but maybe we would see them again later.