I was at a sushi restaurant in Hawaii, a small one run by an elderly Japanese couple.  I was with my girlfriend, who speaks no Japanese, so were were talking to each other and to the wife, who was serving us, in English.  While attempting to snap my chopsticks apart, I somehow managed to fling the pair halfway across the room onto the floor (not so proud of that part).  The wife hadn't noticed, so next time she came by our table I asked her, in Japanese, if I could get a new pair.  She answered あ、はい、大丈夫です and brought them over.  No problem.

A few minutes later, she brought over our 甘エビ, which neither of us had ever eaten before.  The bodies were raw, but the heads were also on the plate deep fried, so I asked in Japanese whether we were supposed to eat the heads.  She got that shocked look on her face and said 本語がわかりますか？ and we got to talking about how long I had been studying it, about the time I spent in Japan, where I had lived, how it sounded like I had a Tokyo accent, etc.

It wasn't until we were back in the car headed home that I realized that when I had asked the first time about the chopsticks, it had sounded natural enough that she hadn't even noticed I was speaking Japanese.

Haha, that's cool man. The little victories add up to a great feeling. I had my first lengthy conversation when a friend invited me to voice chat with his friend and I found out abruptly that his friend's English was on-existent. We powered through using my broken Japanese, and my friend as occasional translator in broken English. It was great fun. 1.5 hours later I was drained, but also on a rush. It's important to note how far we've come.