Embarrassing things I've done while traveling

Making a fool of yourself while traveling is inevitable.  You'll make a gesture that you shouldn't.  You'll accidentally say "Please pass me the tampon" instead of "Please pass me the salt" when trying to use a foreign language.  You'll forget to say "hello" when you enter a shop and piss off the owner.  And that's ok, because everyone does it.  Also, it builds character.  Ok, maybe not, but it makes for a few good stories.  Besides, you'll never see the witnesses again

I've had my share of embarrassing travel moments, just like everyone else. Some were accidental, some were committed on purpose, and some were just purely idiotic.  So shame be damned - for your entertainment, here are a few of the embarrassing things I've done while traveling (don't worry, this is just a sampling):

1. Accidentally walked into the middle of a funeral at Sveta Nedyela church in Sofia, Bulgaria.
2. Shamelessly took a picture of a traffic accident involving a watermelon truck in Sofia, Bulgaria. The vehicle owners were not nearly as amused by the scene as I was.  They were also not amused with my picture-taking.
3. Went to some hot springs at night on the island of Ischia in Italy with a friend and 2 Italian men, and totally assumed they were “just being nice to the tourists”.  File this one under "dumb-ass".
4. Consumed too many terremotos in Santiago, Chile.  I don’t remember what I did, but I know it was cringe-worthy.
5. Jumped out of a metro train in Cairo, Egypt and promptly laid down in the middle of the outdoor platform in an attempt to not pass out. The locals kept their distance from the western chick lying on the ground.
6. Tried to talk my way into Cambodia with a supposed lack of blank passport pages, merely resulting in a loud and long scolding in front of other travelers and demands for bribe.  And all this happened on a tiny speedboat.
7. Puked my guts out on a park bench in Monaco while the elite of Europe sauntered by. I put the "ass" in "classy".

So don't worry if you mispronounce the name of the beer you want to order at a pub, play a game of charades with a local in the town square to figure out where the nearest toilet is, or accidentally fill your water bottle from a public water fountain meant for dogs. You're not semi-conscious and prostrate on a train platform in the Middle East. Laugh with the locals and keep on going - they have no idea who you are, and you probably made their day.

Babushka! Part 2

We were so utterly relieved that Babushka hadn't thrown us out that we went out to a market and bought her flowers.  We still felt a little bit guilty about springing an extra person on her.  The look on her face was priceless, and she started exclaiming in Russian.  "She loves them," Andre translated, though no translation was needed that time.

Later that evening as we arrived back at the flat after dinner, she motioned to us to join her and a neighbor in her living/dining room.  The room consisted of a large table with bench seating and a television. There really wasn't room for anything else.  She motioned for us all to sit, and she whisked out an old 2-liter-sized soda bottle filled with a peach-colored liquid.  This was no store-bought soda.  Andre posed the obvious question to her.  "Baba says it's her homemade wine, and she wants to share it with us."

To start with, this stuff looked just like Mango Grove Boone's Farm (I'm not going to get into how I know that there is such a flavor as Mango Grove by Boone's Farm - just take my word for it).  And my experiences with homemade wine haven't been terribly positive. Many of my previous homemade wine tastings would be described as "overly-sugared essence of vinegar with a hint of fruit that should have been tossed a week ago."  So the sight of Baba walking in with a sketchy bottle of liquid did not exactly produce the big smile on me that it did on her.  But we were in her home, she wanted to share, so it was my job to suck it up for the sake of positive cultural ties between Bulgaria and the US.  Or something like that.

The wine met my low expectations with flying colors.  But Baba made it, and so I would drink it.  Baba drank, too.  In fact, after just one glass, she was lit.  She babbled in Russian with a huge grin on her face.  Then she started to sing.  And to our great surprise, Andre started to sing with her!  She was singing Russian songs that she knew since childhood, and Andre (whose father was Russian, if I remember correctly) just happened to know them, too.  The wine suddenly seemed much tastier.

Andre and Baba

Baba started telling us about her life.  She told us of her late husband and how he proposed to her at a beautiful beach just a few kilometers north of town.  There was a glow in her face that I knew wasn't just from the wine.  She stood up from the table and beckoned us to follow her.  She wandered into the bedroom that Christina and I were sharing and pointed to an old black and white photograph over the bed - it was a picture of her and her husband sitting on the rocks at that very beach.  I couldn't believe that I'd already spent 2 nights in this room and never paid any attention to this picture.  It was beautiful - both Baba and her husband were all smiles, looking at each other as they lounged on the rocks in the beach breeze.

We visited that very beach the next day.  How could we not?  This ordinary, diminutive old woman had allowed us to share her home, her wine, and her life story.  Deliberately seeking out that beach was simply another way to thank her for her kindness and generosity and to show that we appreciated what she shared with us.  I don't know if Baba is still alive and kicking and renting out rooms in her flat, but if she is, I hope she is still sharing her wine and singing to her guests.  And I hope her guests appreciate it.

Babushka! Part 1

After our guinea pig experience in Sofia, Bulgaria,Christina and I briefly parted ways with our new German and English friends. They consisted of Andre and Gustav, the Germans we picked up on our flight to Sofia, and Tom, the Brit that we adopted in our hostel in Sofia.   Christina and I made plans to meet back up with Andre and Gustav in Varna, a resort town on the Black Sea.

Christina and I arrived in Varna first.  Our first stop was an accommodation agency to find a place for the four of us to stay.  Despite our complete lack of Bulgarian and the clerk's complete lack of English, we managed to secure 2 bedrooms in a local woman's flat.  We were so proud of our amazing traveling skills.

After a couple of wrong turns and general confusion, we found the building that was to be our home for the next few days.  Our hostess, a smiling older lady who also spoke no English, had a perfectly lovely flat. It was not fancy in any sense, but it was furnished and clean.  We engaged her in a game of charades to try to explain that we were going to the train station to meet up with the boys.  I don't think it worked.

Home sweet home.

Back at the train station, we saw Andre and Gustav pop through the crowds... with Tom.  Christina and I exchanged looks.  We had no idea Tom was coming to Varna, too.  But there was nothing to be done except go back to the flat and see what we could figure out.  Given that Christina and I couldn't even effectively communicate something simple like "We'll be right back", how were we going to get across, "Oops, we're actually 5 instead of 4.  That's cool, right?"

I admit, I was pretty nervous as we climbed the steps back up to the poor lady's flat.  I certainly didn't want to make her angry.  I never want to be the tourist that gives an entire nationality a bad reputation.  I also didn't want to spend the rest of the day running around the city trying to find another place to stay. I'm not very good at charades.

The five of us walked in, and the little old lady came out to greet us.  Languages immediately started flying around the hallway.  Bulgarian, German, English, Russian.  Russian!  It took us a moment to realize that Andre and our hostess were speaking Russian to each other.  It sounded... angry.  Great.  We were going to get kicked out and leave this poor woman cursing every English-speaking tourist in Bulgaria.  Look at us, Cultural Ambassadors of the Year.

And then they burst out laughing. Andre turned to us and said, "It's perfectly fine for all five of us to stay here.  We can just pay her directly for a fifth person and not tell the accommodation agency. And she wants us to call her Babushka."

Without Andre, we would have probably caused a scene and ended back out on the street.  Instead, we kept our lodging and gained a Bulgarian grandmother.

Top 7 things to know before landing in Bulgaria

1. Bulgaria uses the Cyrillic alphabet.  Christina and I somehow managed to land in Sofia before realizing this, despite each of us having read an entire travel guide on the country.
2. A head shake back and forth = "yes".  A nod up and down = "no".  Knowing this will not, however, prevent you from questioning whether someone is actually telling you "yes" or "no" every single time you encounter it.
3. Bus stops do not need signs, announcements, or any indication whatsoever that they exist.  If you are bright enough to board a bus, you are bright enough to figure out where to get off without any help.
4. Train stations do not need arrival signs, arrival announcements, or any indication whatsoever to help you know where the hell you are.  Asking the Bulgarian sitting across from you if your train is arriving at the city of ___ will not help you figure this out (see #2).
5. Train stations may or may not have toilets.
6. The plumbing has been around for quite some time, so your TP really needs to be deposited in the garbage can next to the toilet.  But don't sweat this one too much - you will forget about this at least once a day.
7. "McDonald's" is spelled "Mak..." Oh, just look at the picture.  This never ceases to be funny.

A peculiarly talented rodent

Thank God for Andre.  Without him, my friend Christina and I would have had an incredibly frustrating time making our way through Bulgaria.  More importantly, we would have missed out on one of the most prized experiences of our entire trip.

We met Andre and his friend Gustav on our flight from Berlin to Sofia and ended up traveling with them  for over a week. Andre just happened to be fluent in Russian, which was spoken (albeit somewhat reluctantly - gee, I can't imagine why) by many people throughout Bulgaria.  Without him, we never would have been able to communicate with a man on the street corner standing nonchalantly next to a folding table complete with a guinea pig sitting contently on a newspaper-covered dinner plate.

We saw him from across the street smack in the middle of downtown Sofia.  Andre promptly sauntered over with the rest of us on his heels.  We listened to their conversation in Russian, hoping the man wasn't angry.  Russian always sounds angry.

Andre turned to us to translate.  "He says it's a fortune-telling guinea pig.  We pay him, and the pig tells us our future." Who needs the Nevsky Cathedral when you can get a guinea pig to predict your future?

We paid out the hefty sum of about 25 cents.  The man pulled out a box of of cards wrapped in very thin paper, very similar to that box of cards containing the god-awfully impossible questions in Trivial Pursuit.  He held the box in front of the guinea pig.  The pig leapt onto it and began to rifle through the cards with his front legs.  He suddenly stopped, bit down onto a single card with his teeth, and pulled it out for the man to take.  He unwrapped the divinely inspired/randomly selected card and proudly presented it to us.

What did our future hold?  Well...  we'll never know.  The card was written in Bulgarian.  But we didn't care in the least that our future was still a mystery.  It had been foretold by a rodent, and that was all that mattered.  

I ordered what?

Trying local cuisine is a fundamental part of travel to a new place.  If you go to Memphis without having BBQ, Belgium without trying the chocolates, Naples without noshing on the pizza, or Mauritius without drinking the coconut tea, your experience will be woefully incomplete.  A few years back, I realized the fun in ordering or buying something without having a clue as to what it actually is.  While backpacking through Bulgaria with a friend, we bought what we assumed would be a plain piece of bread at a market.  Upon tearing into it, we discovered that it was filled with cheese.  Cheese! Brilliant!  We immediately dubbed our find "Bread Surprise" and decided that we must shop at more markets to see what else we could discover lurking inside innocent pieces of bread.  We found jams, fruit, herb concoctions, and more cheese inside our purchases as we played this game throughout the country.  We were actually rather disappointed to tear into one particular chunk of bread to find it... utterly devoid of anything extra.  Well.  How boring.  Hmph.

I tried this again recently in Paris at a nice restaurant.  Upon looking over the entrees, I decided to pick one whose description bore not a single word that I could translate.  (I don't speak a lick of French to begin with).  What did I end up with?  Scallops!  And they were fabulous.

I don't have a 100% success rate, though.  At a tiki bar in Hawaii, I once again played the food surprise game.  I saw something called "tako poki" on the menu.  There was no explanation, I found the name pretty laughable, and I immediately envisioned Homer Simpson amusing himself by constantly poking at a beef taco at a Mexican restaurant.   That vision quickly vanished when this was placed in front of me:

WTF is that and why did the chef forget to cook it?  Seriously.  Waitress...?  I think my dinner is trying to crawl out of the bowl...?

It turns out that tako poki is marinated octopus.  I like to consider myself a decently adventurous eater, but the tako poki won this battle.  The dish was rather tentacle-heavy, and I would have been able to stomach more of it had the tentacles not been so, well, tentacle-y.  Thank God for that Mai Tai that I ordered.  At least I could have a liquid dinner.  Bottoms up!