Questions you wish you had waited to ask.

[byegad]

Some years ago my wife and I were in Paris and after a good meal, a few drinks and a stroll. It started to rain, so we decided we'd use the Metro to get back to our hotel. Our decidedly iffy 'plan' of Paris showed a Metro station near the corner of the Place de la Concorde, Rue de Rivoli and Rue Saint-Florentin.
So we duly arrived at the junction and started looking for the 'Metro' sign to the station. After ten minutes or so of crossing roads, never a 'Good Thing' in Paris, and made necessary by the huge number of coaches picking up and dropping off tourists, we approached a very bored and damp Gendarme on duty outside an Embassy building. In French, which I speak passably well, for holidays, at least....

He paused before answering as two coaches pulled noisily away leaving huge clouds of diesel smoke and fumes... the cloud of smoke cleared and he pointed to the gap they'd left and said, with huge amounts of spite and scorn; 'La!'

We turned around and... (Damn and blast!)

Lo!...Or maybe La!

There was a Metro sign!....and the stairs down to the line.

Two minutes later and we'd have seen the damn sign, and be spared the very real scorn of one of Paris' finest. At least we made his shift. Being able to be rude to English tourists must have made his night.

Anyone else with a tail to tell?

 

[BJH]

Trying to find a shop once when picking up parts, couldn't see it. Pulled into a car parking space and asked some one who then pointed over my shoulder.......it had obviously crept up behind me!

 

[yello]

Pretty much every 'where is the x' question I've ever asked anyone.

Invariably, I find said item the nano-second I finish asking the question. I'm even thinking there's some damned conspiracy going on and stuff hides from me waiting for me to ask the question.... then and only then does it leap out from its hiding place.

 

[tony111]

Had a day out to Barcelona while on holiday further down the coast. Went by train but couldn't find our way back to the station later that day. Saw a policeman, looked in phrase book and asked confidently, " donde esta la estacion por favor".He answered me in ...........spanish. Didn't understand a word he said. For some reason I've never worked out why I was expecting him to answer me in English. My wife's had some mileage out of that over the years.

 

[Arch]

Had a day out to Barcelona while on holiday further down the coast. Went by train but couldn't find our way back to the station later that day. Saw a policeman, looked in phrase book and asked confidently, " donde esta la estacion por favor".He answered me in ...........spanish. Didn't understand a word he said. For some reason I've never worked out why I was expecting him to answer me in English. My wife's had some mileage out of that over the years.

That's a common problems I think, when you use a phrase book. You feel all clever and confident about getting the words out, but forget that you also need to understand the answer. And the more confidently you ask, the more likely the person is to reply to you as if you are a native!

 

[byegad]

Mrs Byegad and a girlfriend were having a shopping weekend in Chester. They caught came out of the train station and and hailed a taxi. Loaded their luggage, enough for a small expedition up the Nile for twenty people, into the taxi, squeezed in and gave the name of the hotel. The driver pointed over the road to...


...the named hotel. Two red-faced ladies retrieved their luggage, enough for a medium sized expedition up the Amazon, out of the taxi and toddled over the road to check in.

 

[tyred]

In a car as a passenger, we were looking for a large hotel (can't remember the name) on the outskirts of Carrickfergus. We drove all over the place, before admitting defeat and pulled into a petrol station to ask directions.

"There it is!" replied the petrol pump attendant pointing to a huge building directly opposite with flashing neon signs showing it to be the hotel we were looking for.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Had a day out to Barcelona while on holiday further down the coast. Went by train but couldn't find our way back to the station later that day. Saw a policeman, looked in phrase book and asked confidently, " donde esta la estacion por favor".He answered me in ...........spanish. Didn't understand a word he said. For some reason I've never worked out why I was expecting him to answer me in English. My wife's had some mileage out of that over the years.

did something similar in Finland having finally worked out how to ask for water and was answered in English. (we were cycling through swamp forests at the time and water is not as easily available as you would imagine).... anyhow, I knocked on someone's door and when it was answered, asked for water in pidgeon Finnish. the guy answered "certainly, would you like me to fill up all of your water bottles?"

In Athens, December 2011, my OH tapped a policeman dressed in riot gear (looking at the rioters) on the shoulder and asked him where the Greek National Bank was. Strangely the policemen wer standing between the rioters & the bank which was behind us

 

[Arjimlad]

"When's the baby due then?" is, in my experience, a question best left until someone else has been reliably informed that the hypothesis is correct ..

 

[vernon]

Earlier in the year, most of Bradford schools declared a snow day. My school hadn't. One of my colleagues was agitated and railing against the 'injustice' of it all. He even went as far as printing off the closure list, all thirty pages of it, and put it in the heads' in tray to make a point.

Another colleague trying to wind up my agitated colleague even further said, "Do you realise that there are only two high school open in Bradford?"

The agigtated one instantly regretted his response of "Is one of them ours?" when we laughed so much that we cried.

He's Irish by the way.

 

[T4tomo]

"When's the baby due then?" is, in my experience, a question best left until someone else has been reliably informed that the hypothesis is correct ..

Yes, always best to assume the lady isn't pregnant and lead with "I see the diet's going badly then"

 

[Arjimlad]

Yes, always best to assume the lady isn't pregnant and lead with "I see the diet's going badly then"

!
I'd like to live to walk my daughter down the aisle, meet & spoilt grandchildren etc...

 

[byegad]

Third and probably last one from me.

The same woman mentioned in the 'Chester hotel' story and her husband, were with us in London.for a short break and we took the boat from Westminster down to Greenwich. As we approached Greenwich, on the opposite side of the river, the HSBC?? building had a bright Aircraft warning light flashing at the peak of the roof. The lady, who really isn't safe out on her own, pointed out to us and a goodly percentage of the boat and said; 'Look the Burglar alarm is flashing!'. The resulting spluttering and laughing, both openly and behind hand from the more polite fellow travellers is still something we remind her of, and she still blushes about it.