Category: Travel

THIS is the way to social distance while travelling by air

A320 in flight

EMPTY flight, airborne. Leaving the northern coast of Spain, entering the Bay of Biscay.

Was doing a little digital cleanup and came across some pics from our trip to Spain and Portugal (judging from the age of the child, the absence of her brother and how much hair was still on my head, this was some time back). We were on a TAP (Air Portugal) flight that had one of the most circuitous routings – Lisbon to Houston… through Moscow. This wasn’t some hacker fare of different flights cobbled together, this was TAP’s main flight to get passengers across the Atlantic (via the Arctic!).

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Some mundane observations from a grocery store in the Azores

I have always enjoyed going to grocery stores while visiting other countries. It gets you out of the tourist district and gives you great sense of how the locals actually live. I love trying new snacks, seeing what types of food the locals eat, seeing what brands dominate, what they pay for it etc.

As I wandered the aisles of this particular store on Terceira Island in the Azores, Portugal, the first thing you are struck with is the foul stench of death. I mean fish. It’s everywhere. Observation #1, Azoreans love their fish.
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Things that sound vaguely racist

Ok, been cleaning out my hard drive desperately trying to stay distracted until tomorrow’s ultimate presidential smack down of death, came across a slew of pics from various and sundry travels that I have been meaning to post.

While I am sure in their native language or culture they are entirely innocuous, the following four are all definitely borderline racist or at least just make me slightly uncomfortable.

Saw this one in Turkey – cookies for the black man called Negro
Negro cookies

Saw this one in Sweden – I am 100% certain you are not supposed to say Jap (or even Japp):
Japp candy bar

On that note, how are Nips still allowed to be sold as well?
Nips crackers

These last 2 are in San Antonio TX.

How do you ding? Ding how?
Ding How restaurant

Any finally, Porky’s?? Really? Do fat people really not get offended by this?
Porky's burgers

Seen on the train from Madrid to Cordoba

This bathroom sign cracks me up. Look I get that we’re on an internal journey in Spain and that signs in English shouldn’t be required – but to have every language *except* English just seems odd. Especially since every other sign in the country, if it’s not in Spanish only – it’s in Spanish and English… including another sigh in this same bathroom which explains the flush.

multi-lingual sign

More train signs

There’s something very disconcerting about this image. I just don’t trust this guy’s intentions and I sure as hell don’t want him anywhere near my child!

It actually strikes me as kind of like what a changing table for vampires would look like…

creepy changing table sign

Pro-littering rules???

I am sure I must be misunderstanding this but it looks like this sign says it is ok to throw bottles out the window:

weird sign on train

I wouldn’t have even commented except I saw this sign:

weird sign on train 2

on the way back from Berlin to Prague, which seems so say to not throw trash in the trash cans!

Women of the world

I will share what I have learned on my travels speaking the international language of love (it’s English, btw. It conveniently happens to be the international language of everything else too…).

Polish women are all angry. Every single one.

Czech women really seem to like wearing dead animal furs.

Uzbeki women have questionable taste (this is based on the fact that the one I met was really really into Hindi movies… yes, I said it! What’re ya going to do about it!?!)

I think only the giant German women ever leave the country. The sample here seems quite normal sized unlike their giant foreign traveling bretheren.

Finally Canadian women… hehe, I’m not going anywhere *near* that one!!!