Can always try and reverse the question - "So, are you on vacation?" followed up by "From what?". Whenever I'm trying to make conversation with anyone, some of my go-to's are "What've you been up to?" and "So what brings you here?" - vague, informal, open-ended questions that are great for starters. It's such an strange aspect of human culture that we can misunderstand each other so weirdly at times...
Those are both pretty safe. And yeah, the spectrum of people's communication protocols is deep and wide, even in a dive bar outside of city limits. I didn't communicate properly, I went for a swiss army triplet when she ordered a paraflam cheese. But on the flip side, I'm not into one night stands, and I'd never date someone with no job or not in school. It was just interesting to accidentally stumble across a sort of AFK filter of that criteria for the face-to-face "scene". Guess I hadn't really thought about it before it happened. All of this is monumentally eclipsed by the fact that I'm already in love with someone, and it's monogamous.