How Not to Travel in Europe
Karen Rowan, 2007
This will be the title of my new book. Many people have written
books about HOW to travel in Europe. Who needs another one
of those?
My daughter and I started traveling to Mexico when she was
not quite three. We speak Spanish, but Mexico doesn't give
us that intoxicating jolt of culture shock anymore. We don't
struggle with the language barrier and we know how to negotiate
Mexican cuisine without getting ill. We aren't sensitive anymore
to the learning curves and struggles of travel, but we want
to be. So this time we traveled to Germany and France for
a month, where we spoke almost none of the language and knew
nothing about the culture.
This experience was wrought with mistakes and mis-steps.
I would love to say that I've never made this many mistakes
in so short a period of time, but I am a fly-by-the-seat of
my pants kind of traveler and usually have multiple "Gidget"
moments. If I could perfect a prat fall, my true stories would
be perfect for a sitcom.
So… so that you'll never have to purchase another book
on how to travel in Europe… my possibly incorrect assumptions,
tongue-in-cheek generalizations, self-deprecating, meant-to-be-funny
but all true list of European vacation errors. .
How NOT to Travel in Europe….
A diary of 35 mistakes
that have already been made.
On Packing
1. Do not forget all the things you absolutely couldn't
replace and realize it in 45 minutes from home, forcing you
to turn around at 2:30am to retrieve them. Vitamins, shake
mixes...
2. Do not pack every last possible resource you could
possibly need for a month in Europe.... except socks.
3. Don't forget floss. They don't seem to have any
at most grocery stores. They have toothpicks.
4. Do not pack tank tops when traveling to Germany
in November. Pack sweaters. And snowsuits. And rain gear.
5. Don't forget a watch. Unless you know your numbers
up to 23, you'll have trouble understanding the answer to
the question, "What time is it?" "It's 18:00."
Excellent…. That was so very helpful. What's the big
hand pointing to?
Europe in general
6. Do not travel when the dollar is so weak that $400
American dollars is $269 Euro. Yikes. Gas is about $1.48 in
both France and Germany. Per liter.
7. Do not try to type on a French keyboard 2 days
after having tried to type on a German keyboard. Both are
very different from a U.S. keyboard and are also different
from each other. Your messages will be indecipherable and
will look a little like a secret code.
8. Don't buy a new camera in Europe. They come without
a photo disk thingy, the photo disk thingys are impossible
to find and the battery re-charger has a European plug, so
the camera will ultimately be useable only as a stage prop.
9. Don't purchase DVDs in Europe. DVDs are coded by
region and work only in the region where they were purchased.
The U.S. is in region 1. European DVDs are in regions 2 or
3. Completely incompatible. Anyone want a DVD on Le Louvre
that won't play on a U.S. DVD player?
10. Do not take your child to Amsterdam
as your first stop in Europe. Walking down the street through
clouds of funny smelling smoke and passing by stores with
surprisingly revealing front window displays is not the best
way to convince yourself that this is going to be a good family
bonding experience.
11. Do not try to travel across Europe with a credit
card. Credit cards are accepted almost no where. ATM cards
work at some ATMs, but not all. Euros only. (And when you
pay with a bill, you get back coins. Every single time. By
the end of your journey you have pockets full of pennies,
nickels, dimes, 50 cent pieces and 1 and 2 dollar coins. No
paper.)
12. Don't worry about speaking the language. I studied
German and French simultaneously, so both are jumbled together
in my head. My sentences come out, "Haben zie eine (bad
German) seccion (Spanish) au anglais (bad French)" which
did not get me to the English book section of the book store.
However, Kassidy, in her frustration with her minimal German
and French (she can say "I don't speak German / French"
and "do you speak English?"and "Is that vegetarian?")
said, and I quote "A-bud-adie-budadi?" with correct
intonation for a question, while pointing at a carrot. The
nonsense gibberish she uttered caused her to be given and
not charged for a carrot. She said, "See? It worked!"
I said... because that woman thinks you're mentally challenged
and felt sorry for you." So... don't bother learning
the language. Grunt, point and make up words. They'll think
you're "slow" and give you carrots.
Agen, France
13. The little handle at the bottom of the toilet traditionally
used in the U.S. to shut of annoyingly long-running, energy
wasting toilets is not actually the handle to turn off the
water on French toilets. It is the handle used to shut off
the water to the entire house. When traveling in France, do
not turn the handle no matter how many hours the toilet runs.
It will shut off the water to the household and cause a massive
crisis.
14. Do not explore abandoned, dilapidated farm houses
in southern France. They are protected by an evil I have only
heard of in fairy tales called "nettles." Nettles
are a weed that, when they touch bare skin (for example, the
space between the pants and the socks), they sting. They feel
an awful lot like a bee sting or an acid burn. It burns continuously
for about 5 minutes and then is reactivated by contact with
water, and burns all over again for the next 5 days. Apparently
vinegar is supposed to alleviate the sting. Not that much,
though. So... don't walk through nettles.
15. Don't eat dog food. We were eating dinner with
our host and hostess in France when she took Kassidy's bread
and said, "you don't want that." Her husband had
found the bread and lain it on the table. But the evening
before the dog had found the bread and Judy and I had chased
it all over the house trying to get the loaf back. Whereas
I might have thrown the loaf in the garbage... Judy hid it.
She didn't want her husband to find it and know that the dog
had stolen his third loaf of bread and get mad. So she hid
it and didn't realize that he had uncovered it and served
it until we had already eaten it. I don't think this is typical
French behavior. She's from Indiana.
16. Don't eat oysters. When you are served something
slippery, slimy and gag-inducing, think fast and quickly pretend
to be allergic to it. Claim your mouth itches, causing your
host to hurriedly wash your plate and bring you a new fork.
Advantages: your host will not be offended, you will not have
to eat slime, and you can tell your mom later that you aren't
really allergic to oysters.
17. Don't go walking in southern France wearing tan
clothing. Wear red. See that guy standing next to the apple
orchard in front of you? He's a hunter. He's looking for deer.
Or rabbits. Or boar. Seriously. Boar. Don't go walking in
anything that might get you confused with a boar.
18. Do not recoil the first time a French woman tries
to smell your neck. Do not recoil further the more she tries
to lean in to smell your neck. Do not raise your eyebrows,
arch your back and back into the vase behind you. She is not
trying to smell your neck. She is trying to kiss your cheek.
Both of them. Do not behave as though she's a vampire about
to suck your blood. If you do, it will make your mom laugh
so hard her sides will hurt. And she will keep laughing. And
she will keep telling people the story. And she will email
it to all her friends.
Paris
19. Do not try to travel in Paris
during a train strike. If it looks bad on the news, it's worse
in the actual Paris. Bypass Paris, wave at the Eiffel Tower,
buy some postcards of Paris and keep going. Paris is impassable
during a strike. The trains are cancelled, the cabs audition
passengers (if you aren't going far enough or somewhere that
is easy to go they'll say "no" and keep driving,
leaving you standing on the street corner), the traffic is
preposterously heavy, and riding a bike is dangerous because
there's so much traffic and there are so many motor scooters.
"Bike lane" in Paris means bus, taxi, motor scooter
and bike lane. When you call a taxi from a hotel, the taxi
begins charging when it's called. When it arrives at your
hotel it will already have charged you 7 Euro --- about 11
U.S. dollars.
20. Do not try to bring cheese home. No matter how
blown away you are by the large quantities of really expensive
cheese being sold for only 2 Euro. Particularly at the beginning
of your trip. First, it will smell like sour milk. Like...
if you were to spill a gallon of sour milk in the trunk of
your car just before a heat spell. Then, it will start to
smell like really moldy cheese. Even though the French will
tell you that cheese is mold, so it's supposed to smell like
mold and the moldier the better... that's not good mold. Even
if you lock it in the bathroom of the hotel room overnight
and put the cheese in four plastic bags. Your awareness that
passersby are as stricken by the pungent odor of old socks,
moldy cheese and sour milk coming from your suitcase will
ultimately cause you to heave the cheese into a public trash
can in Paris. By that time, all the clothes in the suitcase
will also smell like dying, sweaty, moldy cheese.
21. Do not try to rent a bike during a bus and train
strike in Paris. There are kiosks across Paris where bikes
can be rented at any point and dropped off at any other station.
Bikes are rented by credit card. (The only exception to the
credit card rule). Only European credit cards, though, where
information is loaded on the top and on the bottom. American
credit cards have information only in the black strip. Those
machines ONLY accept credit cards. The absolutely., unequivocally
do not accept ANY American credit card. It's like their revenge
on American tourists. No buses, no trains, no cabs, no bikes!
Ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!
22. Don't ride a bike in Paris during a strike and
get lost on the way back and have to stop to call the bike
place that closes at 18:00 with your brand new calling card
that you don't know how to use from a broken pay phone at
18:00 causing you to panic and say the only thing you should
not say in your desperation to get help from someone who can
get you back to the bike shop before it closes, locking your
luggage inside and leaving you stranded with only rented bikes
for clothing.... which is "Parlais vous anglais?"
while holding out a bike shop pamphlet and a calling card.
Because that's the thing that a peculiar group of immigrants
says outside of the Eiffel Tower before handing you a postcard
begging for money. Coincidentally, all of their fathers recently
died and they are stranded in Paris and need money to get
home. I was mistaken for one of them and bruskly pushed aside...
which made me just a little even more frantic to get back
to the bike shop. So... don't say "Parlais vous anglais"
in Paris. Jason Fritze taught me to say, "Je parle francais
comment un vasche espanol", which means "I speak
French like a Spanish cow" and makes Parisians nice to
you. Seriously.
23. Do not lose your credit card in Paris.
Germany
24. Do not come to Germany in November. It is days
after Octoberfest. It is days before the opening of the Christmas
markets -- the world famous, not to be missed, Christmas markets
in every city in Germany... open about November 29th. It rains
or snows most of the time. It's windy and cold and icky and
cold symptom-inducing. You will be asked a dozen times by
people all across Germany if you'll be staying long enough
to see the famous Christmas markets. You will be tsked at
for having traveled to Germany when the tourist season is
over, the tours are all cancelled for the off-season and the
Christmas markets have not yet opened.
25. Do not get off the train when they say "Basnofewniongrwsoinschein"
when you really meant to get off at "Bfvrnejngrenionigornwschweiss."
All German cities sound the same if you don't speak much German.
26. Don't order "spaghetti with tomato sauce"
from the children's menu. It means spaghetti noodles with
ketchup. Cold, regular, from the American ketchup bottle ketchup.
27. Don't ask for "müll" when you mean
"mulled" wine. "Müll" means "unrecyclable
trash."
28. Don't pull on the shower curtain to get your balance
when you slip on soap in the tub. Shower curtains are not
attached to an extendable plastic rod. They are attached to
a wire that is drilled into the wall. It will yank the wire
out of the ceiling and send the curtain crashing down.
29. Don't order water in a restaurant. It's 3.50 Euro.
They don't believe in serving tap water in restaurants, even
though Germans brag about having the cleanest, best tap water
in the world. You can explain and mime "tap water",
but they'll look at you like you're really strange. Probably
because of the miming. Also... they think ice is unhealthy.
Don't order water without ice. You'll just look stupid. It's
like ordering pizza without rice.
30. Don't try to go shopping on a Sunday. Germany
is closed on Sundays. All of it. If you want to explore without
having any authentic real-life Germans or any pesky open shops
in the way, though, by all means.
31. Do not order anything with "Schinken"
when you want chicken. Even with lots and lots of clarification
through miming, complete with balking and flapping of wings,
you will still not clearly communicate "chicken."
Schinken is ham. Pork. It tastes like really, really bad,
salty, chicken. If you have never before in your life consumed
a pig, it will make you ill. Even if it's wrapped in a really
yummy crepe made by an Italian guy in a train station in Stuttgart.
32. Do not forget to bring bags with you everywhere
you go in case you need to buy something. They'll charge you
50 cents. Depending on the day, that's somewhere around 75
U.S. cents. You will ultimately decide that it's more trouble
to try to explain in German that you want to give the bag
back and get your 50 cents back than to just let them add
it to the grocery bill.
33. Do not get engrossed in a book while on a bus.
The walk back from the stop where you looked up to the stop
where you were supposed to get off might be pretty long.
34. "The train is running 15 minutes late"
in Germany does not mean the same thing as "the train
is running 15 minutes late" in France. In France it means
it will arrive 15 minutes later than originally expected.
In Germany it means that it was 15 minutes late at the last
station and will pick up time between stations. Therefore,
if you arrive at the platform 10 minutes after it was originally
supposed to arrive you will have just missed your train.
35. Do not take a three hour train ride to Koblenz
to take a boat cruise down the Rhine River to see the hundreds
of castles that grace the river's shoreline on November 26th.
The cruises run until October 29th.
Ironically, while going to the Rhine River to go on the boat
tour, we took a train ride all the way up the river and saw
all of the castles. When we arrived, a security guard was
talked it to letting us on the ship. We were able to wander
around and take pictures and meet the people running the naval
school. All of the signs along the way listed the times for
the cruises. None said that there were not cruises in November
and December. When we walked away, trying to decide what to
do, we saw an intriguing street full of lights and decided
to go for a walk so that we wouldn't feel like we had entirely
wasted our trip. We rounded the corner and gasped and kept
on gasping in sheer delight. We were at a Christmas market.
(You had to wait a minute to get to the ironic part.) Rows
upon rows of wooden booths housed a Territory Days / Springspree
kind of celebration. Gluewein, hot apple cider, cakes and
breads and sweets and clothes and artsy craftsy things and
dolls and rides for small children and John Denver... no joke...
John Denver singing Silver Bells over the PA. We returned
on the train full of hot apple cider and loaded down with
inexpensive, beautiful things we had bought along the way.
Instead of getting the $1.50 pfand back on the mug, we very
un-germanically went home with our mug, washed it and packed
it. On the train ride home, as the sun was just about to set,
we stared at the castles along the Rhine and imagined little
girls who grow up in Germany dreaming of growing up to be
princesses that live in those castles. I devoured The Kite
Runner on the ride and Kassidy continued working on her novel...
a book about a little girl, written entirely in Spanish. And
such was the entire trip... rarely what we planned... almost
always an enchanting, unplanned side trip.
Our missed train in Mannheim resulted in meeting a 3 fellow
travelers and passing the time on our way to Agen chatting
and getting great advice on places to stay and things to see.
The majority of our half-hour sitcom gaffs actually took
place in a house way out in the country about 30 minutes outside
of Agen about halfway between Toulousse and Bourdeaux. The
house was between a kiwi orchard and an apple orchard. Those
who pick the fruit after it has already been harvested by
the owner are called "gleaners" and they do so with
the knowledge and tacit approval of the owners. It was a paradise
of corn fields, starry nights and dead silence surrounded
by old farm houses and rolling hills.
A side-journey into a pathetic little store in Tuebingen
resulted in Kassidy finding 10 Euro and being unable to find
the owner. She re-distributed the wealth to street performers
over the next few hours.
Every miscommunication, every bumbled conversation, every
mis-step resulted in a note on the list of things that need
to change in our language program. First... we will teach
the meaning of "Schinken."
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