Don't plunge right into the middle, will you?

Just remembered one of my funnier experiences in Cairo, which is one of those cities that has almost too much of everything, including sights, entertainment and traffic chaos.

What it also has is a surprisingly well operating public transport system, which now includes taxis, metered and bargaining, buses that follow regular routes only that it is tricky to know what they are unless you're living there and the-easiest-to-use-of-all: the metro.

It is about this that this entry is. Or in particular about my entry into it. Sometime late at night I was coming back to my hotel after having enjoyed a shisha in one of the many great cafes and bars that offer it throughout the city. I had used the metro several times already so I confidently jumped into one of the middle cars, only to be screamed at by all of the women that sat and stood packed into it. I stumbled back onto the platform, swaying a little and wondering what had just happened till the train rattled of.

Just at that moment an Egyptian man, who had just missed the train running down to the platform walked up to me and set things straight. The middle cars (that is to say 4 and 5) in the Cairo metro are reserved for women (after 21:00 it's actually only number 5), so all the women who want to be on their own will congregate there, which would sort of explain why they would object to a 30 year old Dutch guy with red hair bumbling in, wouldn't it?

Jump right in - but not in the middle on the Cairo Travel Guide.

Knowing you way around the North of Germany

Like many Dutch people I can speak German (we do get all the German TV channels in the Netherlands, plus of course we're neighbours) which tends to make traveling to the country much easier. There are one or two occasions where it doesn't. Let me tell you about one.
I was heading to Kiel - flight from Amsterdam to Hamburg and then on in a rental car - to meet some clients. As I got closer to the Northern German town in my rented Golf the haze grew ever thicker: not an uncommon phenomenon near cold shores anywhere. So much so, in fact, that I had to slow down to snail's pace and couldn't even make out the signposts by the roadside anymore.
Eventually I made it into town, but orientation there was impossible. So I pulled over got out of the car and stopped the next person on the pavement.
"Execuse me," I asked in German, "do you know the way to such-and-such hotel?"
To which he replied, "yes," matter-of-factly and walked on.
I stood dumbfounded for a few seconds then I ran after him and caught him up a few moments later.
"Err," I stammered, "could you tell me the way there?"
"Yes," he answered once more, just as calmly and went along his way.
This time I didn't let him get very far.
"Then please tell me the way to the hotel," I prompted rather unnerved.
"Of course," he smiled, "why didn't you say so in the first place..." and he gave me the most detailed explanation I could hope for, leading me to my hotel in no time.
When I arrived there, I told the story to the receptionist and she laughed. Not many people get our Northern humour, she explained: in hindsight, I think I do.

Find the way on the Kiel Travel Guide.

Never come too early...

...when you're in Barcelona.
Last autumn I went there for a weekend to escape the clammy Amsterdam November. It was well worth it, with the sun out constantly for 2 of the three days and so many things to see and do that it seemed like I had been there for weeks on end when I came back.

But I digress. What I really wanted to say, aside from do visit Barcelona when you get the chance, has to do with the different customs, two of which I stumbled into in my usual bumbling manner.
The first of them happened when I had just arrived, was still at the airport and trying to phone some of the hotels I had meant to book earlier but never come round to. I was standing in the phone box for quite a while fishing through my notes to come up with the numbers and trying to communicate in Spanglish with the various receptionists when I noticed someone making odd signs at me. I really thought he was crazy when he started tapping at the pane and used his hand to show what I thought was the crocodile mouth that parents sometimes do for a shadow puppet rendition. Of course it wasn't that: when I finally left the booth and went past him he gave me a hard talking to in Spanish till he learnt that I was a foreigner (not that unlikely on an airport I would have thought) then he burst out laughing. He explained to me in broken English that he was producing the scissor symbol,  recognized universally throughout Spain with its meaning of: "Cut it short, please!"
The second strange occurrence happened, or rather didn't, when I was waiting for 2 Spanish people I had met in a park, and who had kindly invited me to a seafood restaurant. We were to meet at a certain bench by the marina at 9pm. So I turned up at the time and they didn't. Over the next 30 minutes even Barcelona started to feel frosty to me and finally I decided to leave - just when they arrived: "In Spain," they explained holding back their laughter, "it is assumed that you're at least half an hour late for any appointment."

Take 30 minutes to look at the Barcelona travel guide.

I love desert

In particular, I love the deserts that you can get in France and especially in Paris, whether it be Profiterole,  Crème brûlée or Crêpe Flambé. Any and all of the dishes you get in Paris are sweet and soft and utterly delicious. The only trouble is that you have to wait for them for a very long time, which brings me to my point, business etiquette - well almost...
First, let me digress a little to say that I love French starters main and any supplementary courses almost as much as I adore deserts. I do have a complaint though. Especially in the higher priced restaurants waiters make you wait rather than wait on you (though if you've ever been to McDonalds you'll know the French definition of fast food is somehow different to the rest of the world, too). The only exception I have noticed is the wine which usually arrives promptly after you order and at exactly the right temperature. Food is an altogether different matter though, and it is quite common for 2 hours or more to pass till you reach desert time, and the best bit of the meal - well, for me at least.
The business morale in this? It's quite simply the same. If you want to discuss a juicy deal over a meal in Paris, you better pace yourself till its desert time. Before it's considered to be poor taste to bring up business matters, and casual chatting is the norm. And don't worry that there won't be enough time for discussions when it gets late before your desert arrives. No matter what the time, in Paris you always still have a moment for a coffee, or two.

Don't talk, just read the Paris Travel Guide.

In the front seat

Recently I flew to Auckland. It being an exceedingly long flight (over 24 hours with a stopover in Singapore's Changi airport to be precise), I was suitably grumbly and dead tired as I arrived.
(I am only mentioning this because I feel kind-of-bad about not taking the public bus to the city centre that is effective and only slightly less convenient than the taxi I did take out of pure laziness.) Anyway, I did go to Auckland in a taxi.
Having helped the driver haul my far too heavy backpack (containing about one pair of shoes per vacation day) into the boot, I sat down next to him on the passenger seat - presumably because that's where I would sit in a normal car and it isn't my habit to ride in taxis. Those who are more familiar with it - and somewhat richer than myself so that they can afford to be more familiar with it - will probably know that it is customary to sit on the back seats. And they would be totally wrong.
In Auckland I had it right for once. As a man (women are exempt if they are afraid of potential sexual harassment) you are expected to sit on the passenger seat in New Zealand. It is a show of equality and equality, fortunately, is very important in this beautiful country.

Oh, and as an aside: if you ever should be faced with a Maori warrior dropping a spear on the ground in front of you (which luckily tends to happen only to politicians on state visits), do bend down to pick it up, but do not - under any circumstances - lose eye contact.

Have fun in Auckland and New Zealand,
Groggi

Sit where you want while looking at the Auckland Travel Guide.

Keep looking in Hong Kong - or should you?

When I went to a speaking course, the number one lesson hammered into me was to look at my audience because it creates a link between me and them and makes them feel at ease.

As it would so happen, just a week after finishing my training, I found myself in Hong Kong on a business trip. Sitting in a Dim-Sum parlour with a Chinese colleague of mine, I put my newly-acquired skills to the test and told him a story, never taking my eyes off him, but always keeping myself focused on his face and regarding him with a friendly smile. And fondly enough my expression was met with an ever widening smile.

It took me the better part of the meal to realise that the smile was just as forced as my eye-contact and that it was in reality an expression of extreme discomfort. In Hong Kong (and large parts of Asia), unwavering eye-contact is considered to be aggressive and a sign of distrust, my friend explained shooting only fleeting glances at me after I had told him about my training and why it was that I had thought it right to stare. Then we both laughed looking down at the table.


Look left and right on the Hong Kong Travel Guide.

I say tomato, you say tomahto (but we both say potato)

Hello all,

I've just been talking to a friend of mine from Holland who claimed that you could tell Brits and Americans apart by their greetings. I agree and disagree.

What he was referring to is the common idea that Americans say "How are you?" while the British ask "How do you do?" - only that it isn't true. Be it because of the influence of Hollywood films (now also occasionally referred to as movies in the UK) or some other reason, but many people in Britain tend to say "How are you?" just like their American counterparts. Only that they say it in a distinctly British way, with a clearly perceivable accent. The same is true for words like zebra crossing (often zeebra even in the UK nowadays) and tomahto (American tomato). That is not to say that the traditional British versions don't still exist - in fact they remain more popular - but you need to judge from the accent, not the words, if you want to find out who's American and who's the Brit.

Oh, and nobody ever says potahto - except in the song Let's Call the Whole Thing Off by George and Ira Gershwin, from 1937 from which I tool my title.

Cheers,
Ralph

Don't say it, read it - on the London Travel Guide.