We have a special treat for the readers of the Amazing European Adventure today with guest writers Trudy and Ben publishing their first work. Here it is....
Jason's descriptions of the said umbrella incident are mostly true. We can verify that the event was a most humorous experience... What we would like to clarify is the slightly over-exaggerated description of
it as 'the most hilarious thing we've ever seen'!
We would now like to share another funny moment that was encountered with Merlino over the course of this European Adventure. We have had
many conversations about how us Aussies when travelling overseas, just expect that the locals will speak English, and when they don't, many young Aussie backpackers seem to become quite annoyed. Thus, we have tried, where possible to have 'cultural exchanges' with locals (to use a Ben phrase!)Now, we must firstly say that Jason has impressed us with his ability to interact in Italian, however, in Vienna, we witnessed quite a linguistic event. We were on a bike tour round the city, enjoying the sites of Vienna.... As we entered the gardens containing the golden statue of Strauss, the climax of the tour, we parked our bikes and listened to the guides explanation. The motley crew had parked their bikes all over the place... quite the faux pas in this apparently exquisite city.Most Austrians were too polite to comment (this is the country where children are kidnapped and live with their kidnappers for 19 years because the neighbours don't talk to each other, after all). Well, almost all of them... Slowly an old lady sidled up to the group where no-one would give her any eye contact... Except of course, for Jason, who was as usual, ready for a cultural exchange.
many conversations about how us Aussies when travelling overseas, just expect that the locals will speak English, and when they don't, many young Aussie backpackers seem to become quite annoyed. Thus, we have tried, where possible to have 'cultural exchanges' with locals (to use a Ben phrase!)Now, we must firstly say that Jason has impressed us with his ability to interact in Italian, however, in Vienna, we witnessed quite a linguistic event. We were on a bike tour round the city, enjoying the sites of Vienna.... As we entered the gardens containing the golden statue of Strauss, the climax of the tour, we parked our bikes and listened to the guides explanation. The motley crew had parked their bikes all over the place... quite the faux pas in this apparently exquisite city.Most Austrians were too polite to comment (this is the country where children are kidnapped and live with their kidnappers for 19 years because the neighbours don't talk to each other, after all). Well, almost all of them... Slowly an old lady sidled up to the group where no-one would give her any eye contact... Except of course, for Jason, who was as usual, ready for a cultural exchange.
It all went well... That is, until the lady began to speak. It became immediately obvious that she was either angry, or wanted something from Jason - probably both.
But Jason was unperturbed. You see, his theory was that in Europe, you can avoid uncomfortable situations by pretending you don't speak english. This works for beggars, street hawkers and ticket inspectors, and we had both been looking toward to seeing it work.
Little did we know that all it involved was the magic phrase "no speaka da eenglish" spoken repeatedly whole frowning with one hand tucked under the arm and the other gesturing dismissively.Despite the group understanding immediately what the woman was saying (which was helped by her gesturing wildly to the "no bikes!" sign); Jason stuck to his guns and even had us convinced that he didn't, as a matter of fact, "speaka da eeeeenglish!".
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