Weirdness while travelling *share your tales*

[katiescarlett]

In 2000, and again in 2002, I traveled to Haiti.  On the first trip, we were driving through town, and I looked out the window to see a man with clothespins clipped all over his face.

[Sara Crewe]

We are in the midst of a wonderful car tour through Scotland.
It's a three week trip, so we've had to do laundry among the way.
Usually this means socks etc done by hand, but yesterday we had quite a bit to do so we drove into town to the laundromat.

It was...interseting, as it was piled with clean and partially finished laundry. (Near as I can tell, travellers at the hostel toss their stuff in and take off for several hours.)

I brought a biik and settled in to do my wash.
Another traveller came in and it quickly became clear we did not have any languages in common, but fine, no problem.

He opened his backpack and took out his dirty clothes.
Fine. 
Then he took off his shirt and changed into a clean one.
Okay. A bit odd, but okay. 

I am loading my clothes into the dryer when I heard a belt opening.
I turn around and he is *taking off his pants*.

Fortunately, he had trunks on underneath and did Not change those!

But who does that???

Someone who took the Nick Kamen advert far, far too seriously? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q56M5OZS1A8

[marcel]

We are in the midst of a wonderful car tour through Scotland.
It's a three week trip, so we've had to do laundry among the way.
Usually this means socks etc done by hand, but yesterday we had quite a bit to do so we drove into town to the laundromat.

It was...interseting, as it was piled with clean and partially finished laundry. (Near as I can tell, travellers at the hostel toss their stuff in and take off for several hours.)

I brought a biik and settled in to do my wash.
Another traveller came in and it quickly became clear we did not have any languages in common, but fine, no problem.

He opened his backpack and took out his dirty clothes.
Fine. 
Then he took off his shirt and changed into a clean one.
Okay. A bit odd, but okay. 

I am loading my clothes into the dryer when I heard a belt opening.
I turn around and he is *taking off his pants*.

Fortunately, he had trunks on underneath and did Not change those!

But who does that???

I now that some people travel with several changes of clothes, but for those who don't this is the way to do it.

Also, considering that he did not go naked, what is wrong with this?

[White Dragon]

We are in the midst of a wonderful car tour through Scotland.
It's a three week trip, so we've had to do laundry among the way.
Usually this means socks etc done by hand, but yesterday we had quite a bit to do so we drove into town to the laundromat.

It was...intersecting, as it was piled with clean and partially finished laundry. (Near as I can tell, travellers at the hostel toss their stuff in and take off for several hours.)

I brought a book and settled in to do my wash.
Another traveller came in and it quickly became clear we did not have any languages in common, but fine, no problem.

He opened his backpack and took out his dirty clothes.
Fine. 
Then he took off his shirt and changed into a clean one.
Okay. A bit odd, but okay. 

I am loading my clothes into the dryer when I heard a belt opening.
I turn around and he is *taking off his pants*.

Fortunately, he had trunks on underneath and did Not change those!

But who does that???

I now that some people travel with several changes of clothes, but for those who don't this is the way to do it.

Also, considering that he did not go naked, what is wrong with this?

Well, the changing his shirt didn't make me uncomfortable - that's something you could see on a beach or elsewhere.
I was uncomfortable with a man starting to disrobe his trousers in a public place, in front of a woman he did not know.
I didn't feel threatened, but I was uncomfortable because I didn't know if he planned to remove everything.
I thought it unkind of him to put me in that situation. He did have other options than taking off his clothes in front of me.

[dawnfire]

This one baffled me when it happened. I would have been 5 or 6 at the time and I was staying in Hong Kong after the death of my maternal grandfather. My mother is Chinese and my father is Australian. As a child I looked pretty Chinese (the black hair, Asian eyes and nose). We had caught a cab to go to Ocean Park (an aquatic park half way up a mountain). We've pulled up to entrance and gotten out. Sudden there was this guy talking in rapid fire Chinese to my mother, gesturing to my sister and me. It turns out he wanted a a photo of my sister and me! apparently he could tell we were mixed blood and thought we were cute (I'll admit was pretty cute as a kid <gee modest ain't I>      )

[atirial]

We are in the midst of a wonderful car tour through Scotland.
It's a three week trip, so we've had to do laundry among the way.
Usually this means socks etc done by hand, but yesterday we had quite a bit to do so we drove into town to the laundromat.

It was...interseting, as it was piled with clean and partially finished laundry. (Near as I can tell, travellers at the hostel toss their stuff in and take off for several hours.)

I brought a biik and settled in to do my wash.
Another traveller came in and it quickly became clear we did not have any languages in common, but fine, no problem.

He opened his backpack and took out his dirty clothes.
Fine. 
Then he took off his shirt and changed into a clean one.
Okay. A bit odd, but okay. 

I am loading my clothes into the dryer when I heard a belt opening.
I turn around and he is *taking off his pants*.

Fortunately, he had trunks on underneath and did Not change those!

But who does that???

Someone who took the Nick Kamen advert far, far too seriously? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q56M5OZS1A8

And who doesn't drink Carling Black Label (sorry - UK beer spoof of the Nick Kamen advert. NSFW).

[Winterlight]

A friend of mine was visiting the east coast a few years ago and had come to my city unbeknownst to me. I  decided I needed more culture in my life, so had gone to a museum. While I'm wandering around, I look up and see her. We were both surprised, amused, pleased and ended up spending the afternoon together.

[Elfmama]

We are probably featured in some Italian family's weirdness tale...

Sometime between 1986 and 1989, we were standing outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, waiting for the Changing of the Guard.  DH, me, two little girls.  The gentleman standing next to DH turns to his traveling companion and asks "What time is it?" in Italian.  Companion shrugs.  DH answers, also in Italian.  The Italian gentleman is delighted to find someone who speaks his language and asks DH if he's Italian.  "No, signor.  Americano.  La bambina es Italiana." and he points to DD2. (And so she is -- dual citizenship.)  And he managed enough of our rudimentary Italian to convey that she was born in Brindisi.

So somewhere in Italy, there is a man who tells the story of the American family with the Italian daughter who just happened to be standing next to them at the gates of Buckingham Palace when he asked what time it was.

[Library Dragon]

Earlier this month DH and I were in Mexico City.

We were wandering around the Palace of Fine Arts and wishing we had an English language guide book to the museum.  Up steps a group of English language students who had an assignment to explain the paintings in English.  Yay.  We were happy to help.

Later at the Cathedral we were approached by another groups of students needing to do an interview in English.  Glad to help.  This is repeated a few times.

I think the teacher will be tired of seeing our faces in all the presentations.

[Slartibartfast]

Library Dragon, that reminds me of an experience my grandfather had a few years back.  He was one of three boys, and all three of them went into different branches of the military over the course of WWII.  My grandpa was in the army (landed the day after D-Day in Normandy) and his twin older brothers were in the air force and the navy.  The last thing they ever got to do together (one brother died last year; Grandpa and his other brother are well into their 90s) was to visit the WWII memorial in Washington DC.  Point of note: Grandpa was a minister for many years.  He loves LOVES telling stories (or sermons) and having an audience.  His brothers didn't go into quite the same people-centered careers he did, but all three of them are great at spinning yarns.

Anyway, they went to the memorial and this was a really big deal because until then, Grandpa never talked about what happened during the war.  But a boy - obviously with a schoolgroup - came up and asked if he was a veteran, and he said yes, and the boy asked what he did during the war.  So Grandpa started talking, and telling stories like he loves to do, and his brothers chimed in with their versions of what happened - all three were in the European theater at once - and the way Grandpa tells it, the group of kids just started growing until the three of them were telling all their war stories to at least one class worth of interested fifth-graders plus their teachers.  It sounds like the teachers had intended for some sort of actual curriculum, but instead they let the kids sit and listen to these three old veterans for nearly an hour.  When they finished a bunch of the kids came up and gave them hugs and thanked them for their service and when he was telling us later, Grandpa just sounded so proud he could barely stand it.

That experience was what got Grandpa and his brothers to finally sit down and write about what had happened to them during the war years.  I knew the basic story - Grandpa's unit got to the beach the day after D-Day, he lost his pinky finger to some shrapnel, and the rest of his unit was killed a few days later while he was getting patched up.  But now we have a book the three brothers put together where each, in his own words, talked about his own experiences, even the difficult ones they never told anyone else about afterward.  Great-Uncle Jim died last year - I think if they hadn't run into that group of schoolkids, we would have never known what his war years were like.

[Library Dragon]

Wow! That is so great.  Those firsthand accounts are important.  History happens to real people.

[White Dragon]

We're Canadian, so DH and I were taught French in school. We're not fluent, but we muddle through.

We're touring in Scotland and the French has come into play in small ways from time to time. (I've come to discover that being able to say Please, Thank you, Sorry, and Excuse me in several languages goes a long way!)

One evening, we had a nice French/English chat with a family at the guest house.
The next evening, the mom came to me for help in reading the menu.
She was ha king trouble with "roast haunch of Lochhabor venison."

Not high-school french vocabulary!
Her first question was was it meat or fish?
Okay I could answer that's it's meat.

Four legs or two?
Four.

We then ruled out it being beef, pork or mutton. But we did not know the word for deer.

The Italian speaking teenager across the room leapt up and pulled up Google translate on her iPhone.
She had to set it up, because none of us understood the Italian instructions, but we managed.

So there we were English-French-Italian, with Google translate and me making antler signs on my head.
Finally, the Dad exclaimed "Like on the Dalmore Whisky!" (The logo is a stag)

Success! Big grins all around.

(The next day, I realized I probably should have just said 'Bambi' and cleared it up right away.)

[Diane AKA Traska]

Library Dragon, that reminds me of an experience my grandfather had a few years back.  He was one of three boys, and all three of them went into different branches of the military over the course of WWII.  My grandpa was in the army (landed the day after D-Day in Normandy) and his twin older brothers were in the air force and the navy.  The last thing they ever got to do together (one brother died last year; Grandpa and his other brother are well into their 90s) was to visit the WWII memorial in Washington DC.  Point of note: Grandpa was a minister for many years.  He loves LOVES telling stories (or sermons) and having an audience.  His brothers didn't go into quite the same people-centered careers he did, but all three of them are great at spinning yarns.

Anyway, they went to the memorial and this was a really big deal because until then, Grandpa never talked about what happened during the war.  But a boy - obviously with a schoolgroup - came up and asked if he was a veteran, and he said yes, and the boy asked what he did during the war.  So Grandpa started talking, and telling stories like he loves to do, and his brothers chimed in with their versions of what happened - all three were in the European theater at once - and the way Grandpa tells it, the group of kids just started growing until the three of them were telling all their war stories to at least one class worth of interested fifth-graders plus their teachers.  It sounds like the teachers had intended for some sort of actual curriculum, but instead they let the kids sit and listen to these three old veterans for nearly an hour.  When they finished a bunch of the kids came up and gave them hugs and thanked them for their service and when he was telling us later, Grandpa just sounded so proud he could barely stand it.

That experience was what got Grandpa and his brothers to finally sit down and write about what had happened to them during the war years.  I knew the basic story - Grandpa's unit got to the beach the day after D-Day, he lost his pinky finger to some shrapnel, and the rest of his unit was killed a few days later while he was getting patched up.  But now we have a book the three brothers put together where each, in his own words, talked about his own experiences, even the difficult ones they never told anyone else about afterward.  Great-Uncle Jim died last year - I think if they hadn't run into that group of schoolkids, we would have never known what his war years were like.

We used to have an older man (who we'll call Alan) that would perform odd jobs for us every once in a while.  He was a really nice man, and we always got on well (and I got the impression that it was unusual for a nineteen year old to pay him any attention.)  Well, one day we got on the subject of WWII for whatever reason, and Alan starts telling me about his experiences.  Turns out he was one of the people who climbed the scaffolding at Normandy.  He talked about that for nearly a half hour, and despite not being huge into history at that point, my brain told me "pay attention, this is IMPORTANT."

He never talked about it again, but that remains one of my fondest memories.

[IWish]

Along the lines of "It's a Small World", I was vacationing in Florence, Italy several years ago. I live in the U.S. While in a museum I ran into an old professor of mine from graduate school who was also vacationing in Florence.

That same night I went to a cafe for dinner. Since I was by myself they seated me at a table for four where a man and his son were already eating. It turns out the man lived about 10 minutes from me back home. He was a runner who ran every Saturday morning at the same park where I also run on Saturday mornings. We estimated that we'd probably passed each other every Saturday for the last 15 years.

So, in a city halfway around the world from my home I ran into two people I "knew" from back home in a single day. Weird.

[Thipu1]

We were sitting at a bar on a cruise and making small talk with a couple sitting next to us.  I'm not sure how the conversation got around to it but, it turned out that both the lady and her DH had gotten their Masters' degrees from the same small, upstate NY college where I had received my Bachelor's degree. 

In San Diego, we were taking a cab from our hotel to the airport.  The driver was chatty.  It turned out that he had worked for many years as a driver with the car service we prefer in our neighborhood.  We had a great conversation of the 'Is such-and-such still there?' variety.  He also got a very nice tip.