British tourists have no problem with the lingo in foreign lands – if the locals don’t understand your English you just say it again, but louder. The trouble is, the foreigners don’t understand this rule of linguistics, though it has been a simple method used for centuries.
My very first trip abroad was with my wife, brother, and his wife, in the early 1970’s. We did one of those swift three-day things to Paris. On that trip I became a seasoned traveller. Follow my example to the letter and you, too, will join the elité.
The Laughing Policeman
We reached Gare du Nord railway station without hassle and, because of my utter lack of foreign language skills, I was chosen to ask a policeman for directions. Half a dozen of them stood outside the railway police station and the one I spoke to was quite jolly and amiable. He had one of those pencil-thin moustaches, so he had to be real. Showing him the address, I asked in perfect English, “Can you tell me where this is, please?”
He didn’t understand me in his perfect French, so I repeated my query, this time more slowly, again in English. With many smiles, arm movements, and conferring with colleagues, he promptly launched into a kind of machine-gun French. I listened intently – at least that was the look on my face – for about ten whole minutes and kept nodding or saying ‘Aha’. He pulled me toward a wall map, waving his hands over it. Maybe he wasn’t so sure I was so sure, which I wasn’t. Finally, with arms akimbo, he seemed to indicate (?) he’d finished. His face beamed, so I said ‘merci’ and strolled away again. I was none the wiser, but advised everyone to ‘go this way’ after spying a metro sign on the wall. They hadn’t seen it, though!
The Scornful Street-Trader
When we reached the metro station nearest our hotel, we got out into a cobbled square flanked by tall old houses and shops, full of character.
I made the mistake of trying to ask a local the way again. This time I showed my crumpled bit of paper to a kindly, elderly, man with a fruit barrow. He listened and called over to his friend selling newspapers on the other side of the square. The last bit was “Ha, ha…Anglaise!” as he pointed to his head a few times.
He said something else as well, which probably meant, “Lovely chap – just can’t speak our language.” Then he did something with his fingers, but not sure what.
Suitcase-laden, bedraggled and hungry, we walked up a side street, stopping outside what seemed to be a closed butcher’s shop. Maybe we would come across the hotel by accident. Or maybe there was another maybe.
Reluctantly, I approached a pedestrian, waiting for another insult or smirk. He was a lovely gent in a beret. With broken English and many arm and hand movements, I think he said we were actually very close. I discovered I had the same penchant for not understanding foreign arm movements as I did for not understanding speech. So we ambled this way and that, pretending to be ever so interested in shuttered shop windows.
Then, by magic, the street name appeared. The hotel was like buildings you see in the films, up an alleyway. We were on the very top floor, reached by a long, winding staircase, with old wrought-iron handrails and no carpet. The walls and stairs were painted in ancient gloss, lit by a timer-bulb that went out after a minute or so.
We were at the very end of the top floor, with one toilet in the passage-way. It had a window overlooking a cast-iron stench pipe. Our rooms were original, small and very old, with a tiny, dangerously loose balcony. We saw buildings with crumbling tall chimneys and patched, odd-angled slate roofs, to match the crumbling walls. As the sun went down the sight was wonderful. Well, the tops of the roofs were. And everything inside our rooms remained rickety, even the stale air.
The Foot-Bath That Was’t
I decided to wash and change and saw two rough cubicles with curtains. One contained a ten-thousand year old ceramic basin. In the other, I washed my feet in the peculiar bowl with a spout sticking up. My more-travelled brother later told me it was a bidet, gently explaining how it worked and what it did. I preferred my own version.
Later, we strolled down quaint narrow streets, enjoying the old-world charm of the buildings, trying to avoid twisting our ankles on the cobbles in the dim light.
Then, torrential rain made it all so, well, wet! We reached a street with cafés as the black sky suddenly chucked its entire contents over us, and a bit more meant for Austria. We were soaked in seconds! There was nothing for it – we dived into a corner café and found ourselves in one of those local places only locals eat in.
The signs were French, the talk was French, and the good-natured owner ushered us toward a table in French. We thanked him in English and asked for a menu. To my amazement that was in French, too. Don’t the French realise the British don’t talk foreign? Speaking loudly just wouldn’t work here! The locals gazed impassively at us and chuckled in French.
Cold White Soup
I looked at the menu, completely mystified. Finally, with the confidence of a British tourist, I pointed to a menu line… Yes, I’d have a bowl of that steaming-hot soup and crusty bread. A few French minutes later I was mystified by the extra-large bowl of cold white stuff and bowl of sugar, handed to us by our genial host.
It was kind of smooth with soft bits. It wasn’t ice-cream, so what was it? It was sour! My brother, slightly more international than I because he’d been to Spain for a week, offered an explanation – it was natural yoghurt. I’d never seen yoghurt before. Put some sugar on it, he advised. So that’s what it was for! I left the ordering of coffee to my brother and didn’t ask for anything else to eat.
The rest of the holiday consisted of walking very fast everywhere (because we couldn’t decipher the metro signs) until our feet nearly fell off. But we covered a vast area and many sites. We loved it. Just a pity the French speak French.
Red Faced – Twice!
Then came the top of the Eiffel Tower, where I needed to spend a penny. Actually, it turned out to be five centimes, paid to a middle-aged lady wearing a pinafore, who sat knitting something yellow just inside what I thought was the men’s toilet. My brother chuckled and stayed outside. With horror I saw a raised platform behind a glass panel. There were urinals open to full view of the passive-knitter. She didn’t take a blind bit of notice of my blushing face, and I was too desperate to leave again!
Then, as I did what gentlemen do, I glanced nervously behind me to make sure she wasn’t looking my way. And almost died when I saw women walking past into the cubicles to our rear! My brother stood in the doorway enjoying the look on my face, and the girls fell about laughing uncontrollably.
Rough justice intervened, though; my wife and sister-in-law suffered the fate of all laughing females…they had to pay their centimes and rush to the cubicles, trying not to notice the men! Serves ‘em right!
It didn’t end there…later that same day, alongside the river, I again had to use a toilet (I think it was the fizzy drink) but none was found. Finally, as I began to feel more than uncomfortable, my brother pointed to a strange looking edifice in the middle of the pavement. It was a round iron-work fence-thing without a roof and something like a naughty word scrawled in chalk on the outside. ‘Go in there’ he said confidently. What for? I asked naively. It’s a toilet, he said. I was confused. Impatiently, he told me to just go in and trust him.
I found an opening (no door) and walked in. As if in a maze, I walked timidly around the narrow spiral walkway and reached a central short row of urinals and that was that, or so I thought. My relief, and water stream, stopped abruptly when I heard the click-click of women’s high heels outside, passing. Only on my way out again did I realise the iron ‘fence’ was full of large holes and anyone passing could see inside!
That day I almost died twice of sheer embarrassment, and my jolly relatives enjoyed every minute of it. But at least I was now an assured, seasoned traveller.
Real Travel Adventures 