First of all, apologies for how vague this is going to be. I can’t give away many details without it being very identifying. It’s also going to be loooooonggggg.
Last year, myself, a friend and another friend who we both kind of know but not particularly well decided to book a trip. It’s a two week trip that’s centered around a particular activity. Think of it as like a camp, but for grown ups.
Now, I had been planning on just booking for myself and Friend one. Friend Two overhears us talking about it and wants in. Fine. I don’t know her very well, but just enough to think I can travel with her without problems. The camp is popular enough that it needs to be booked a year in advance, the camping spots for the year open at a particular time and you have roughly a five minute window to book before all the spots for the year are gone. It’s like buying concert tickets but infinitely more stressful.
We spend a few months before booking deciding on which dates we want so I can pounce on the website and make the booking for all three of us. Stressful, but the other two work full time and can’t sit on the internet at work waiting for this website to open. My work doesn’t mind so it falls on me to make the booking. Booking three spots is actually tricky because the website only lets you book two at a time. You have to go back in for the third and risk not being able to swing it.
Maybe two months after booking and paying for the trip, Friend Two pulls out citing parental duties. I’m annoyed, we discussed the dates in length and picked the ones that suited her best (because myself and Friend One had more free time) but I understand parent duties. I find out more details and the child I thought was school age is actually in college. Friend Two’s double booking is something that friend wants to do but not necessarily *has* to do, it’s something that she was aware of when we were booking but evidently had not made her mind up about before we had to book the camp.
One of my bug bears is people who say they will do something, commit to dates and then pull out. But this still isn’t a disaster. She’s paid me back so it’s her own money she’s wasting. Friend One’s sibling decides to join us instead so at least her spot isn’t being wasted.
Now, Friend Two lives in a city that’s a few hours away from camp. It’s close enough that we decide to go and visit her on our free weekend, but still far away enough that it can’t be a day trip and we will have to stay the night. All good. Festival that this city is famous for will be on at the same time. It’s a great time to visit and Friend Two is excited to see us. Friend Two offers to put all three of us up in her house. At this point, my instinct is saying “yeah but can we rely on this?”, but in the end, free accommodation in an expensive city is hard to pass up. Regular readers of this site have probably already worked out what’s about to happen.
Well… it’s a week before we are visiting Friend Two and she’s booked out her house on Airbnb, we can still spend time with her but now we can’t stay with her. This is the last straw for me, had we asked if we could stay I’d be less annoyed, but she offered the accommodation to us. Again, we don’t know her that well, I would have been ok with booking through Airbnb and paying to stay with her, had she asked us to. Popular festival means we are now scrambling to find an alternative and I can’t imagine it’s going to be very comfortable or affordable. I’m letting Friend One sort this out. I’m done.
I kinda wish I’d trusted my gut and said “no” to her offer of a place to stay. But on the bright side, next time Friend One suggests visiting Friend Two I can cite this fiasco as a reason that we should do our own thing. And I”m not booking her camping spot for her again! 0806-18
Tag: Travel
Rude Tourists Who Are More Than Mindlessly Rude
Watch the video…
This has gone viral with the biased emphasis that the Queen’s Guard is the rude person for having shoved the woman out of the way.
Engage your critical thinking skills. Why is this woman standing on the wrong side of the rope? Why directly in front of the guard in his path?
However, an army source suggested to HuffPost UK that the incident was “set-up” in an attempt to “provoke” the soldier and capture a video for use on social media.
The source said the rope that was in place was not a “permanent fixture” and was laid out by the soldier’s superior after he had complained that the woman in the video had made several attempts to touch him.
The source claimed the woman had earlier tried to “grab” the soldier’s arm, rifle and bearskin hat and sit in his sentry box, and had been asked to stop.
“The fact that she has stood there (outside the rope) like she didn’t know he (the soldier) was behind her is ridiculous… it appears to be a set-up to make a little video,” the source claimed. READ MORE HERE
A set up to provoke guard into taking action that could be videotaped and shared online in the hopes of it going viral. It’s fake news. It’s exploitation of others in order to get hits.
I think more of us need to start speaking up if we happen to witness this kind of behavior as its happening. I would hope I would have the gumption to have called out, “Hey Idiot! Get out of the way!” so that video is ruined or the truth is more widely known.
“You know how much we wanted to see them!” Yeah, Sure you do.
This is a question for Ehellions. I’ll give the set up.
My siblings and I all had moved several hundred miles from home by the time our parents were in their early sixties. I lived the closest to my parents, at about 750 miles away. At the times of the visits I’m referencing, my parents were in their 60’s, then their 70’s (they died at 78 and 80). Our parents each had several younger siblings of theirs living in their area, ranging in distance from 10 minutes away to a couple of hours away. Four of my parents’ siblings lived 30 minutes or less from my parents, in three different directions. Every summer, our parents, who were retired, traveled to visit my siblings and me, spending two weeks with each of us at our respective houses.
My siblings and I would travel with our families to visit our parents on occasion, normally once a year or so. Due to school, work, sports, vacation day limits, etc., we usually were only there for about 3-4 days at a time. Since there is no airport near where my folks lived, we all always drove, and it was a very long day of driving each way for all of us. My siblings and I usually did not all come at the same time, as it taxed our folks to have us all there at once, plus our vacation times often just didn’t sync.
My siblings reported to me that they had the same remarks made regarding them that my husband and I had when we visited with my parents: namely, all of our parents’ area siblings, with the exception of the one who lived 10 minutes away, would always tell our parents, “Now when your kids get there, tell them we’d love to see them, and we’ll be home anytime they want to come by.” My mother would dutifully relay this message and ask if we wanted to go visit. Now, on a few occasions, my parents would organize a big potluck picnic at the park when a sibling or I was visiting, and invite the relatives over to join us, but sometimes that just didn’t happen in the time we had there, and we never had the entire family show up, anyway. Please note that all of these relatives were younger than our parents, and fully capable of going anywhere they wanted to, which they did, often.
Here’s the etiquette issue: my siblings and I, who had driven anywhere from 12 to 16 hours each way, usually with children (toddlers to teens) and spouses in tow, would refuse to drive around the countryside and visit these relatives. We always told our parents we’d love to see the others, too, but could they come see us at our parents’ house instead? (My parents had an open door policy with their family members at all times, so this was not imposing on our parents). The one family member who lived 10 minutes away always showed up at my parents’ when she heard we were coming, and we had a good time visiting with her, but she was the exception. My mother, bless her heart, after we’d refused to drive out for visiting, would then call the area family members to say that we would love to see them, and would invite them over for coffee and cake (she always baked a cake or two) so they could visit with us. Almost every time, those family members said they would try, then not show up. Then they would complain to our parents after we left, “Oh, we would have loved to see (name) and his/her family. Why didn’t they come see us? You know how much we wanted to see them! Goodness, they drove all that way to get here, what’s a drive of half an hour or so to come see us?” And my parents (usually my mom) always had to say something like, “They had such limited time here; it just wasn’t possible.” Which was true, actually.
So, were my siblings and I rude to steadfastly refuse to go all over that end of the state visiting, or were the relatives rude to expect us to come see them, and not take our mother’s suggestion to drop by for some cake and a visit? Were we all rude? My mom was the people-pleasing kind that if we had driven all over to visit, she’d have gone with us happily, but if they had come to us instead, she’d have been just as happy with that plan, in fact, probably happier, as she was a homebody. My dad would have done either thing, as well. Still, I always felt bad that this seemed to land in my mother’s lap, but they always contacted her and my dad, not us, before we got there and after we left. One time I answered when one of the relatives surprisingly called while we were there, and I issued an invitation to come see us (I had already discussed this with my parents) and got the reply that, “if we have time, we’ll try to make it, blah, blah, maybe you could come here….” And of course, they never showed. This ended when my parents died, and my sibs and I always felt the others were rude, but are we wrong? Could we have handled this better? What should we have done? 0215-18
When people say things like, “Oh, we would have loved to see (name) and his/her family. You know how much we wanted to see them!”, it’s best translated as, “I’ll say this to make it sound like I’m invested in family but I really don’t have the time to actually make that investment.” I ignore these comments as nothing more than words in the wind because the value is in what they actually DO as opposed to what they say. If they really wanted to see you, they would make the effort to do so and not guilt manipulate you into driving even more and be away from your parents.
Do You Speak English?
Reading through your ‘Travel” section of the archives reminded me of how my own dear family decided to act on a European vacation we went on!
The vacation was to be a week-long cruise starting in Barcelona and going to parts of Italy and France with my mother’s family – Gramma, Aunt Carol, Aunt Lisa, and her son Bob who was two years older than I, as well as my younger brother, mom, and dad. Since my mother and father met during an exchange program in Austria, Dad decided that we four would spend an extra week in southern Germany and Austria before heading to Barcelona. I had been taking German classes for four years at this point, my brother had just started a German class, and my dad majored in German, so I was quite excited for that portion.
To prepare, I did some research on how Americans should conduct themselves overseas to avoid being “rude Americans” or standing out as targets for pickpockets or thieves. Suggestions I found included learning some basic phrases and names of food you like, and dressing a little fancier – no athletic gear worn as normal clothes, no white socks with shorts and sneakers, no backpacks or fanny packs, no cameras worn on the neck, no baseball caps, dark wash jeans, and no chewing gum or being loud. Since Dad was being very paranoid about having money or phones stolen, I relayed the suggestions to him and printed out some basic food phrases in the various language, as well as phrases like “Don’t touch me,” and “No thank you” in case we were approached by shady characters (we were taking public transportation at times and Dad was rife with horror stories about them).
The German part of our trip went off relatively without a hitch. Dad, thrilled to be back in one of his favorite places, struck up conversations in German with every waiter and taxi driver we came across just to prove he could. I made sure to order everything in German, ask questions in the shops in German, and speak in English only when spoken to first. The only problem was Dad’s attire – everything on the “don’t” list, plus a bright blue hiking backpack with neon orange clips that he clipped over his shirts and wore everywhere. Overall, though, we had a great time in Germany and Austria and even met up with Dad’s old host family for an impromptu snack when we were in the neighborhood!
We eventually arrived in Barcelona and met up with the aunts, Bob, and Gramma outside of our hotel. We were in an older, more historical section, and Gramma wanted to go see a certain cathedral. Upon entering the hotel, the first words out of Aunt Carol’s mouth were, “DOES ANYONE HERE SPEAK ENGLISH?!” She repeated her question to the lady at the front desk, who answered, “Nope, Spanish,” with more than a hint of sarcasm. After the initial embarrassment, we asked the lady if there were any good tourist attractions that were okay for walking-challenged Gramma, and we mentioned the cathedral. “No, no!” she cried. “That will be so boring for your children. So old! You should see the MAGIC FOUNTAIN!” She helpfully gave us directions. Naturally, as we walked there, we had to stop every ten feet and make Carol, Lisa and Gramma were still behind us and not just randomly standing in the middle of the walkway taking pictures of the buildings, the people, the pigeons, the signs, the ground, the trash cans, the homeless man peeing in the street…
When we arrived at the fountain, I decided the concierge lady had pulled a little prank on the rude Americans. The fountain was there, and it was a very nice large fountain lit by many colors, but surrounding it was the Barcelona Gay Pride Festival. There were open-air urinals, rainbow everything, many people being affectionate, plenty of alcohol, and an enormous stage with an elaborate drag show being put on. My conservative Gramma was speechless, only uttering “Well…look at the very pretty men…” I was about to die trying to suppress my laughter as my relatives all stared blankly forward or at the ground and marched towards the fountain!
The rest of our trip had a similar theme of “DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?!” Taxi drivers in Barcelona had long conversations with each other outside the taxi with the meter running, since we had no way of communicating with them in Spanish. English menus were demanded in Italy and France, often with the waiters’ faces drooping into a glower. Photo opportunities were apparently everywhere, even in the middle of crowded squares! We weren’t as bad as some of the stories on this blog, but I was still more than a little embarrassed that my family wasn’t even trying to fit in or do their best to interpret the menus. Luckily, nothing was stolen from us.
My Dad has invited me to come on another European cruise with my immediate family over the summer, this time with a week in Germany preceding a cruise around Sweden, Russia, and more northern countries. Unless he learns to speak a lot of Swedish and Russian before then, I think I will pass! 0910-15
Life Is So Interesting When There Are Mr. Speshuls Around
I just completed the long expected road trip to attend my mother’s last days which included a total of two rental cars, and nine buses (total of 7 transfers).
I do part time graphics editing for a few clients. I am paid a retainer to be on call. To this end the bag of geek gear and accessories had to travel with me. I carry extra laptop batteries.I also carry a true brick of a recharger unit, it is the size of a house brick and weighs 1kg. (It will run the laptop or charge the phone several times). This thing is big, huge, heavy, and required.
I start the five bus, 4 transfer ordeal at 3 am (bus is running late). Some fellow acting like he is super speshul, is talking on his cell, blathering, and he’s so much a wheeler dealer on a long distance semi-express during dark hours. Nobody’s sleeping because of him and apparently he’s been doing this since about 9 the previous night when this route started. (Some would be riding this one end to end, btw, I joined it a quarter in and would ride most of the way). Why the driver didn’t make him hang up I don’t know.
Most of the buses are now equipped with plug-ins, and really nice ones have USB plugs. Some, however, do not work. This was the case with this one, it blew something enroute. So phones were going low. Including our speshul snowflake. And a few hours yet to enough of a stop to be able to plug in at the stop.
Having to keep available, I dig out the brick, put the 12″ lightning cord on it, and plug in my phone. Mr. Super-Important reaches across the aisle, unplugs my phone and snags the end to plug his phone in. I pull away and he pulls the plug out and has my short cord.
He tries to reach for the brick again. I say very loudly “You Keep Your Hands OFF me and GIVE me my cord back!” He goes, “Gimme That”, and tries to grab again. I repeat loudly, “Keep Your Hands Off, this Is Mine and GIVE ME MY CORD BACK.”
The driver raises voice and asks what is the problem. The fellow repeats, “Give Me That!” I tell the driver the fellow is trying to take my phone charger and took my lightning cord. The bus pulls over. We are very late on schedule and we are still in a big urban area. Mr. Speshul tries to make a case for his so important need for my charger as his phone is almost dead. He is conducting BUSINESS and needs to recharge and I’m being selfish since I won’t share! It turns out he’s not a doctor or otherwise on call for something about as important (say transporting an organ for transplant)-the driver is asking these sorts of questions. Mr. Speshul gets removed from the bus. Either he can leave or have the authorities do so and be charged, so he was left several miles from the depot on the side of the road. With much protests about how I’m being the unreasonable one and won’t share because I have a large charger and his phone is dead.
“It Takes A Village” with the translation of “if you have something I need and you don’t give it to me you are a horrid selfish being” is getting old. Yes I got my cord back. 0505-17
Good lord, the audacity of some people! At least they are of some entertainment value as we horrify people with our tales of encounters with them.