Does 'bath' or 'rest'..?

WC may be an oblique term, but water is still involved, and since 'loo' probably comes from the French l'eau, both are reasonable descriptors.

Better than 'Let me show you the geography of the house', which used to be one of our euphemisms!

I'm sure I've asked my fair share of dumb questions when traveling, but my favorite has been asked of me more times than I can count. "You actually LIVE here?"

I just have no idea how to respond to that. I guess most people wouldn't be able to live where I do, and therefore are dumbfounded that I can. But, I also can't imagine them asking such a thing when it's quite obvious.

Your little island is very beautiful, Statia. I'm sure many of us would live there in a heartbeat if we could!

When I was 18 year old, I took the ferry to England after a summer in Ireland. I asked the boatman "When does this boat land in England?" (I think I'd been on too many airplanes that summer, LOL) He looked at me like I had two heads and replied that the boat had already landed.

Don't know if this situation gets at your question, but a few years ago I was in rural Slovakia, strolling the village street with my cousin. We passed by some children and I noticed that one of them was wearing the EXACT SAME dress as I had had in first grade more than 20 years ago (easily remembered because it was my favorite, and I wore it in the annual school picture). I asked the girl, incredulous, "Where did you get that dress?" She ran off without answering my question.

Turns out that my mom had sent our hand-me-downs to her relatives in Slovakia, and they had in turn handed them off to others in the village. The dress had apparently been worn continuously for 20+ years by different people.

That dress got a lot of mileage! Apparently not everyone views clothing as "disposable" as I feel is sometimes the case these days...

Hunnym, that is a remarkable story !

Thanks, dln, but it's not for everyone. (Thank goodness) :)

Hunnym, what an incredible story!

Not a dumb question.. but a total lack of knowledge of Italian. My husband and I were at a restaurant in Belluno and there was a delightful child running from table to table. Almost everyone there but we two were locals and they kept calling to the child with a particular word. (Can't remember what it was ....descriptive as I recall and no where near a name.) Anyhow... we thought that was her NAME and joined in the jollity. Finally, a man at a neighboring table who spoke English clued us in. With him at the table was the mayor of Belluno.. and we got to chatting and he invited us to City Hall the next day, where he presented us with several mementos! When we returned home we sent him something... and we always have lovely memories when we review our photos from that trip.

This was about as "dumb" as I got .
lon our first trip to italy we wanted to visit Montecassino, so we drove the car up the mountain. We reached a big parking lot,a restuarant ans some type of information area. It was about 2:30 pm. Parking lot was empty. I read a sign that said to wait here for buses to the Abbey.
So we parked the car, and went into the restuarant. The kids and my cousin sat down, I wandered around until I found a woman. I asked about the buses to the top, she told me it would be an hr. So, i ordered the children sodas, and the woman gave my cousin and I a glass of their own house wine "on the house."
We talked for awhile About half an hr later, the whole family came out to eat their own meal, including the grandmother.
We had more wine and I was telling them how we were waiting for the buses to come to take us to the Abbey.
The grandmother started to laugh and told me we could just get into our car and drive up!
There was no need to wait for a bus.
We all had a great laugh over that. We thanked them,all of us waved good-bye (I gave them a foliage postcard from my state- VT )
and we hoped into the car and went forth on our journey.

At the train station in Rome I ordered "duo Lattes" at the cafe. Now in Australia a "latte" is just taken naturally to mean a cafe latte - no further explanation needed. My husband and I were very dismayed when our expected cafe lattes turned up and were literally just latte (milk). Warm frothy milk. I was too embarassed to admit my mistake and so we both just drank our warm milk like good little children and laughed till we cried.

When my husband first went to Germany as a student, he wanted to buy a flask for hot drinks. He tried school German, gestures etc. until the assistant said, "Ah, thermosflasche!"