you wonder why some people leave home

[Ken Gargett]

a mate of mine, now a fed court judge, was doing the italian backpacking years ago. was in the sistine chapel and a woman was standing there with her family (i won't mention where she was from as i am sure i will be accused of typical redskin bias against out friendly rivals from the great state of ...).

she looked up and said, and i have never forgotten this, "you know, you gotta assume this is handpainted".

i used to keep a collection of such quotes from things i heard myself (lord knows where they are but i'll find them one day).

meanwhile some classics from various travel sites - 

 

from Lost In Spain: “The street signs weren’t in English. I don’t understand how anyone can get around”.

from Time Machine In The Caribbean: “It took nine hours for our flight to get from the UK to Antigua but the Americans at our resort said it took them just three.”

from Sight Seething In Kenya: “The elephants we saw on our honeymoon were visibly aroused which made my wife upset and made me feel inadequate.”

from a complete idiot - "My fiance and I booked a twin-bedded room but we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact that I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

"No one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared."

"We booked an excursion to a water park but no one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price."

"The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun."

"There were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners."

"I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes."

"We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow." (another complained that she liked the beach but it was too sandy. and yet another described the Grand Canyon as just "an overblown sandy ditch"). 

"I'm sure I've stayed in this hotel room in a previous life. I cannot stay here again."

 

"Why are there no kangaroos hopping around Sydney city? I'm most disappointed."

"It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."

"They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax."

"On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food."

“We went on a canoe trip but were very disappointed that no one told us there would not be a bathroom onboard. It was very inconvenient.”

 

“There was no sign telling you that you shouldn’t get on the hot air balloon ride if you’re afraid of heights.”

 

“You said the town was next to a volcano, but we went and there was no lava. I’m pretty sure it was just a mountain.”

 

“We had to cut our trip short to Yellowstone because we were informed that they don’t cage the animals at night for our protection. This is just dangerous and unacceptable.”

 

“The animals at the zoo looked very sad and it made our children cry. Can’t they train them to smile?”

 

“We bought ‘Ray-Ban’ sunglasses for five euros from a street trader, only to find out they were fake.”

 

“The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the accommodation.’ We’re trainee hairdressers — will we be okay staying there?”

 

“When I exchanged my money on my way back from Canada, I lost money. My money should be worth the same as everyone else’s.”

 

“Hotel staff stole my eye serum and face cream. I am lucky they did not steal my jewelry or laptop.”

[grizzlee]

I wonder how it's possible some people were capable enough to leave home.

[Fuzz]

I remember two quotes from a trip to Europe:

Amsterdam

Female Tourist: "Why are there all these XXX everywhere?" (pointing to the "XXX" on a post)

Male Tourist: "This is Amsterdam! We're probably in the Red Light District!"

Rome

My Friend's GF: "Why is everything is such poor condition?"

Me: "This is the Roman Forum.The ruins are what's left of what used to be the centre of Ancient Rome"

My Friend's GF: "Well then why don't they fix them up and make them look pretty again?"

In her defence, we had just spent a week in the Loire Valley, visiting all the Chateaux.

[99call]

My all time favourite was following an American family in Lincoln Castle. We were following them down a dark spiral stone staircase. The following was said

5yr old girl :  "Mummy, mummy! it's so dark down hear I can barely see where i'm going"

Mother : "I know it's terrible!! but it's worse for me, I'm wearing sun glasses"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another good one was sat in Mudbrick vinyard restaurant in Waiheke. A French customer with his family is giving a mouthful of abuse to the waiter insisting the wine was corked

French customer: "you idiot, you question me! Do you Know!? what do you know?  I am French!, you understand!? this wine is corked, I know this, I know it"

Waiter :  (waiter quietly and serenely places the wine screw cap on the 'Gentlemans' napkin, smiles, and walks away)

French customer:  (stares helplessly at the small screw cap, whilst the whole restaurant watch his face turn beetroot)

[Ken Gargett]

11 minutes ago, 99call said:

My all time favourite was following an American family in Lincoln Castle. We were following them down a dark spiral stone staircase. The following was said

5yr old girl :  "Mummy, mummy! it's so dark down hear I can barely see where i'm going"

Mother : "I know it's terrible!! but it's worse for me, I'm wearing sun glasses"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another good one was sat in Mudbrick vinyard restaurant in Waiheke. A French customer with his family is giving a mouthful of abuse to the waiter insisting the wine was corked

French customer: "you idiot, you question me! Do you Know!? what do you know?  I am French!, you understand!? this wine is corked, I know this, I know it"

Waiter :  (waiter quietly and serenely places the wine screw cap on the 'Gentlemans' napkin, smiles, and walks away)

French customer:  (stares helplessly at the small screw cap, whilst the whole restaurant watch his face turn beetroot)

priceless. 

len evans told me a story about when he was flying - and len never flew anywhere other than first class, though he perhaps didn't always fork out for it himself - and he called the steward over and told him the wine was corked. 

the waiter smiled and whispered to him, 'yes sir, all the wines in first class are corked. it is only down the back where we use screwcaps'. 

 

mind you, i remember one of the festival dinners in havana some years ago where they obviously had a really bad batch of wines and about 3/4s were corked. our table kept sending them back. the poor cuban waiter had no idea what a corked wine was or why we kept wanting to swap and was not happy. 

still, better than the time they set the table on fire. 

[gweilgi]

Reminds me of the American tourist during the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace who declared in a loud voice "Honey, I never knew the British had an army"....

[Ken Gargett]

Just now, gweilgi said:

Reminds me of the American tourist during the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace who declared in a loud voice "Honey, I never knew the British had an army"....

don't laugh, when i worked in DC, i was talking to one of the lawyers in the firm - and there were some of the very brightest lawyers i ever met - and mentioned a discussion i was having with my housemates, one of whom believed WWII did not start until Pearl Harbour. he did not know australia was even involved. 

i said to her that i could understand him not knowing we were in Vietnam but surely not WWII.

she looked at me and said, 'australia was in the Vietnam War? what side were you on?"

 

[gweilgi]

1 minute ago, Ken Gargett said:

don't laugh, when i worked in DC, i was talking to one of the lawyers in the firm - and there were some of the very brightest lawyers i ever met - and mentioned a discussion i was having with my housemates, one of whom believed WWII did not start until Pearl Harbour. he did not know australia was even involved. 

i said to her that i could understand him not knowing we were in Vietnam but surely not WWII.

she looked at me and said, 'australia was in the Vietnam War? what side were you on?"

 

That's what you get when the history syllabus is replaced by Hollywood flicks...  

Debating doesn't help either.  The only thing that works is to take a deep breath and walk away....

[Ken Gargett]

Just now, gweilgi said:

That's what you get when the history syllabus is replaced by Hollywood flicks...  

Debating doesn't help either.  The only thing that works is to take a deep breath and walk away....

she was far too attractive for anyone to be walking away. 

[El Presidente]

In banking I came across a lovely couple from Ipswich (20 minutes outside of Brisbane) who said they were going overseas for the first time.  

"Where? I inquired.

"Adelaide" was the answer. 

 

 

[El Presidente]

Mind you I came across several people who lived in Ipswich and who had never been to Brisbane.  

 

[Ken Gargett]

6 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

Mind you I came across several people who lived in Ipswich and who had never been to Brisbane.  

 

i could not tell you the number of people in DC who told me how impressed they were with how well i spoke english. 

i sat in a meeting with some of the best lawyers you could ever meet who detailed a deal that would be using the Channel Islands for funding. sadly, he did not stop there. he added that he was not quite sure where they were but he thought they were small islands off Hawaii. his boss's head just hit the table. 

and i was also told by one bloke in the firm that he just loved our lions and tigers. 

[Ken Gargett]

9 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

Mind you I came across several people who lived in Ipswich and who had never been to Brisbane.  

 

and vast numbers live in brizzy and have never been to ipswich. 

[99call]

5 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

 Ipswich 

 

I do feel sorry for Australia (and the rest of the world) that we saw fit to name another place "Ipswich". It's like calling your second wife by the same name as the first, even though the first took the house, kids, your dog, car etc. 

Ipswich it so depressing that all it's known for in the UK is being the home town of the Suffolk Strangler, who preyed on prostitutes. 

I cant imagine settling a place that it basically paradise, and going "hhmm shall I call this new area A, Lavender Heights or B, Rawtenstall..............that's decided Rawtenstall it is!!"

[Ken Gargett]

1 minute ago, 99call said:

I do feel sorry for Australia (and the rest of the world) that we saw fit to name another place "Ipswich". It's like calling your second wife by the same name as the first, even though the first took the house, kids, your dog, car etc. 

i had a mate to whom that happened. first wife stephanie. he deliberately looked for, and found, another stephanie and married her. 

he reckoned that was a hell of a lot easier than having to change the monogrammed towels and everything else. 

he was last heard of trying to trade arms to wannabee despots. 

[Fuzz]

1 hour ago, El Presidente said:

Mind you I came across several people who lived in Ipswich and who had never been to Brisbane.  

 

There are people in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, that have never left the area, and look at you in horror when you suggest there is more to Sydney than their little plot.

[El Presidente]

I was the bellbowrie tavern where two youngish mums ordering at the bar were discussing the upcoming school holiday Bali trip. One mentioned that Trev (I assume husband/boyfriend) was looking at maybe doing a day trip to Tokyo. 

[Ryan]

I knew a woman from Chicago who, in the 1980s, got travelers checks for her honeymoon, in Wisconsin.

Standing on a beach near my house in Dublin, a tourist pointed at Howth (a peninsula about 5 miles across Dublin bay) and asked me "Is that London?"

One of my favourites, a fake-news website here (actual fake news, like an Irish version of "The Onion"), Waterford Whispers News, published a story that North Korea had announced they had landed an astronaut on the Sun, pretty funny.

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2014/01/21/north-korea-lands-first-ever-man-on-the-sun-confirms-central-news-agency/

They got an angry letter from The North Koreans, that starts off "Our Glorious Leader with the full might of his Army seeks to make you aware of an error in your trusted news article."

Full letter here.

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2014/02/08/so-we-received-this-letter-from-north-korea-last-week/

The same news site, During Barack and Michelle Obama's visit to Ireland printed this piece.

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2013/06/17/there-are-some-seriously-ugly-looking-motherfuckers-living-on-this-island-michelle-obama/

Again, pretty funny, then some news outlets across the water picked up the piece as being real.

You never can tell.

[Luca]

From a friend who traveled to Japan for the first time:

It’s so hard to find a good Italian restaurant in Japan. They’re just not westernised like us!

[helix]

Just Hilarious tales !  

[Fuzz]

During the 2000 Sydney Olympics, I met a pair of European tourists, that had just arrived into Sydney that morning.

Tourist 1: "What time do we need to get back to our hotel?"

Me: "Anytime you feel like. They don't lock the doors till very late, and there should be a call button to press to open the doors."

Tourist 2: "No, we get back before it gets dark"

Me: "Why do you need to get back when it gets dark? Are you tired?"

Tourist 1: "We were told it is dangerous in Sydney after dark!"

Me: "Don't be silly. It is no more dangerous than any other city. Plus, with the Olympics on, there are plenty of police around."

Tourist 1: "What about the kangaroos?"

Me: "What about them?"

Tourist 2: "We were told by our Australian friend back home that we need to get in before dark. He said kangaroos hunt at night."

Me: *facepalm*

 

[gweilgi]

16 hours ago, Fuzz said:

There are people in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, that have never left the area, and look at you in horror when you suggest there is more to Sydney than their little plot.

What, and ask us to cross the bridge????

[Smallclub]

On 05/02/2018 at 10:04 AM, Ken Gargett said:

she looked at me and said, 'australia was in the Vietnam War? what side were you on?"

I would have been tempted to slap her or kick her ass… sometimes ignorance is insulting…

[Ryan]

I was watching a wildlife documentary in a bar in Chicago in the late 90s with a female friend.

She asks me "What kind of animals do you have in Ireland?" I decided to have some fun.

I told her we have feral giraffes. An English landowner had one male and 4 females escape from his menagerie in the 18th century and they went feral.

But due to inbreeding, they got shorter, 6 feet tall, and turned green, probably an evolutionary camouflage thing.

As they're an invasive species, there's open season on them for hunting, though we only eat the neck steaks, they're a delicacy.

Her response "Really? I never knew!"

"No. We don't have short green giraffes in Ireland. We have badgers."

She's coming over for a visit in September, she still remembers the giraffes.

[Ryan]

Sitting in a mess-tent in the desert in Morocco with my wife on our honeymoon, for dinner with a tour group.

There were about 4 places free at our table.

I saw a waiter leading a group of 4 French girls to our table, I heard one of the girls protest to the waiter "pas avec les Anglais".

I hadn't studied French in a while but I remembered enough to spend the dinner asking them for the condiments in the loudest cockney accent I could muster.

My wife, bless 'er soul, played along perfectly, innit?