The Culture's Always Greener

. . . on the other side of the Pond.

Back in the 80s I took a two-week vacation in England -- your stereotype American Anglophile tourist on a pilgrimage. In London, I stayed at a cheapo hotel in Bayswater: shoebox rooms, communal bathroom on each floor, TV lounge off the entrance. Walking in the neighborhood one night, I saw a neon sign that just cracked me up. It read:

"Texas Lone Star West Saloon & Wine Bar"

It was the "& Wine Bar" that made it perfect.

Days later, somewhere in Southwest England (I don't remember which town), I spotted an ancient-looking stone church with a sway-backed slate roof. I later found out it was built in the 14th century. It looked sort of like the Old Post Office in Tintagel:

but smaller and plainer. I crossed the street and walked up to it, ready to breathe in the misty Olde-Englysshe-ness. There was a flyer tacked to the door, a notice for an upcoming Square Dance, illustrated with a drawing of a cowgirl wearing fringed buckskin and holding two six-shooters.

"People who traveled the world..."

What did you choose not to say about a country you visited to keep the story positive?  

Reddit top voted comments... 

When I fell down a flight of stairs in Hungary and broke my back not a single person stopped to help me while I screamed in pain.

While staying in a hostel near Switzerland a girl started getting sexually assaulted in the room connecting to mine ("stop/no/it's my body"). I wrestled with what to do until I went out and knocked on the door. A guy answers and I asked him wtf was going on. We started yelling at each other until someone came and got him. Later the girl thanked me but that really put a damper on the trip for a few days.

Bosnia is full of trash. I love that country, but damn, is it littered. If you're hiking in the countryside and you see a small lovely path, don't take it, it leads to a dump. Almost every village has one.

When my father came back from a business trip in China, he had a broken leg. He told us that he had slipped on some stairs.
It was only many years later that I found out the Chinese military police had thrown him off a bridge and left him for dead.
He was part of an arbitration team that had been brought in on a legal case against the government for negligence. I don't know why he kept it secret from us for so long, but it certainly changed the way I saw China.

"What was something that shocked you when you visited a foreign country?"

Reddit top answers...

How truly polite the Japanese are. And how unbelievably clean the cities of Japan are.

How corrupt the police force is in Mexico.

Trains in India. Furious fighting, shoving, scratching, and clawing to get on, then for the rest of the eight hour journey scrupulous "I'm so sorry I brushed your foot with mine" politeness.

Don't take this the wrong way, but as an innocent Irish lad going to San Francisco for the first time, I walked out the airport and I thought I landed in Asia or something.

"How One Man Realized His Dream of Visiting Every Country"

"Lessons learned from traveling to 196 countries include what old camel meat tastes like and why toilet paper is the best economic indicator."

I found the surest way to know where a country ranks economically and socially is to go to a public bathroom and check the toilet paper.

I have seven rankings, starting with the best, which is soft white. From soft white it goes down to hard white; hard brown; purple, green, and other colors; to torn-up newspaper; to no paper at all, just a little bucket of water.

The lowest ranking, which is a seven, is when there are no public toilets.

road trip

Astromoths, pop-up card

The true story of NASA's first astronauts told over three pages in pop-up card form. It is a little known fact the first U.S. astronauts were moths. Their ill-fated mission did not go very far.

It's a joke.

A joke!

The dummkopf I gave this card to did not get the joke, and that flat pisses me off.

It had to be explained to him, and then of course, it isn't funny.

They're moths! They do what moths do. Go to the light. Never mind it means disaster, moths are not that smart. They cannot be trusted for anything so serious as a space exploration. They're too easily distracted by lights. That is the joke. Damnit, I hate having to explain simple things like this. Why else would I make them moths? Why else would I bother drawing a hundred tiny lightbulbs? Think, man, think!

It's enough to make you give up trying. That was a lot of work and the guy goes, "Duh."

See? Acme f'n light bulbs.

And the thing that just burns my hide is this guy is now flying around first class and taking cruises all over the place visiting foreign countries, seeing country after country after country, visiting building after building after building, park after park, walking street upon street, having drinks served to him, meals served to him week after week after week, month in and month out, and learns nothing at all worthwhile and cannot even see a joke that a child sees when it is spelled out to him. 

After telling me one of his tour guides extolled the virtues of socialism, and that the only people who vote against new socialist initiatives (new taxes) are the new immigrants, apparently too thick to understand how glorious socialism and high taxation is, who have so much of the advantages of the new programs, and then going on to describe a building  he visited in St. Petersburg, I asked him, "Did the guide explain they are discussing reverting back to the name Leningrad, and why?" 

"No."

Did your guide explain why the building you were touring is fitted with onion top roofs?

"No."

Do you know why they use onion top roofs? 

"No."

They all have fine properties here in the U.S. that can hold anyone's attention forever. They all live in states with outstanding outdoor sights, attractions, and activities to avail them, but instead spend fortunes, and I mean fortunes, on luxurious travel and take side tours besides while there, and manage to avoid learning anything at all worthwhile. Watch news and still do not know what goes on in the world, and why. And still cannot see a plain simple joke.

I give up.

Have Blog Will Travel

This morning in a new post, Althouse discusses the new directions her blog might take.

Althouse is encouraging us to travel on our own... I'm not doing her words justice. I just got up and I haven't brushed my teeth yet.

"As Henry said in his email to me, sharing that first link, above, it was perfectly easy to set up a Blogger blog. It might take one minute, and then you're off. Don't sit there in that old broken-down bus wondering when it will start up again. Climb out, stick out your thumb, and Google will whiz by presently and give you a ride."

Please go and read it and maybe you will say for yourself, in other words, something similar. Here or wherever your final destination might be. Like they say on the plane after it lands. Final destination sounds ominous but sometimes there is no subtle way of saying the obvious. I've said my piece on the comments here (not as eloquently as I could have perhaps) but I harbor no rancor. If I ever do, and I do because I'm human, it doesn't last more than a few days. But, in the end, w/o much fanfare.... I need to go to work soon and I need to finish this.

 

The Doors - The End