Where were you when you were yelled at?
 

Certainly not a serious question, more of a curiosity and/or entertainment one. Where were you when you did something wrong and the locals, whether official or not, called you onto the carpet for it.

I'll give a few examples.

1. The first time I recall was at the Tower of London in '90. It was the first time it happened to me overseas. I was on the Tower grounds when people started motioning at me. I thought I was in the way of someone trying to take a picture. Trying to be gracious and get out of the way I backed right into a quartet of guards in full military regalia who were matching across the grounds. One of them very gruffly straight-armed me to push me out of the way.

2. In Berlin in '98 I was at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was a very somber, very moving and very cold temperature-wise place. I had my hands in my pockets trying to keep warm. A guard kept getting louder and louder as he kept getting closer to me. I finally realized from his hand motions he wanted me to take my hands out of my pockets. In this circumstance I now know, this was a sign of a lack of respect.

3. Chenonceau in May of 2001. I was finally visiting THE chateau that was on the cover of my freshman high school French book. It had taken me 25 years to get here. I walked past the gate at 8:00am well before the opening hour of 9:00. I was heading to the right towards the chateau restaurant hoping to have breakfast. I made it a good 100 yards down the path when I heard a whistle blowing. I turned around knowing the whistle was for me and walked back towards the ticket booth. The guard gave me quite the tongue lashing in French. Luckily my French is poor enough that I didn't get most of it.

Anyone else care to share or confess? Where were you when you were yelled at?

Driving into Dubrovnik we missed our turn and kept following a bus right down the main street towards the walled city. We thought the natives were especially friendly as they were all waving to us. But when we reached the end of the street we realized we had been going the wrong way on a one way street for about a mile -- only busses are allowed to go that way. So the natives weren't really being friendly, probably trying to warn us.

Your title evoked an instant memory.

It was my first day in LONDON. I was stepping into the street to cross after I had looked to the left...

Cars in London, on my side of the street were coming from the right...

I was nearly flattened sans the people YELLING at me to STOP!

Fondly,
Oaktown Traveler

DH and I were trying to drive out of a pay-to-park garage in Innsbruck. The "teller" was automated: stick in your ticket, then your money, bingo, the gate goes up. Well, DH kept trying that, but the machine kept spitting out our money, telling us something in German. Over...and over...and over. Unfortunately, it was a popular lot and a line started to form behind us. There was NO PLACE to turn around and no one to ask what to do. After several minutes of DH and I yelling at each other, car horns joined in. Finally (not sure what we did differently), the gate mysteriously opened for us to a chorus of cheers behind us.

I was staying in Villeneuve=les-Avignon for several weeks and often took the commuter boat home from Avignon when too tired to walk across the bridge.
This night I was exhaused after spending time in the sun in the Camargue and fell asleep with ticket in hand. I was awakened by someone trying to grap my ticket and it became a tug of war. He started yelling at me and couldn't understand, til a guy came over and asked if I wanted to go to Villeneuve. He said you are here. Everyone laughed but I was so embarressed. The nex day when I took the boat across the "guy" was the captain and ticket taker. He greeted me by offering a cool drink.

Well, the yelling wasn't at ME per se....I was with my parents in Korea and my mom is addicted to persimmons. So she went over to a fruit stand and started manhandling the persimmons, looking for the best ones to buy. Apparently I look Korean, so the produce guy started yelling at her in Korean...when she gave him a bewildered look he started yelling at ME and by the motions he was making I could tell he was trying to tell me to make her understand she can't touch the persimmons!

Summer 1968. Height of the Cold War, and I was travelling in the Soviet Union. I don't remember why I was on a river boat or where we were going, but I do remember a beautiful bit of scenery of farmers cutting hay with scythes and stacking it into piles. Tremendous blue sky, golden fields and haystacks. Very Van Gogh. I aimed my camera, and immediately every boat worker started screaming at me. It took quite a while for me to figure out that I was forbidden to take a picture at that point because there was a small bridge in the distance. The bridge didn't look particularly special to me, but apparently every bridge on every river was considered strategic and its existence a matter of extreme national security.

Later, another person in the group took a picture of some very picturesque farm houses painted in bright, Easter-egg colors. The official tour "minder" insisted that the guy destroy the film (i.e., open the camera in mid-roll and pull the film completely out). We finally decided that the Soviets thought we were looking down on these homes as some sort of example of the down-trodden or backward Communists. We just thought the homes were beautiful.

Interesting times to be sure.

Message: I posted this before, but it remains my funniest (being yelled at) experience.

In 2001 we were driving From Cinque Terre to Florence, four of us in the car. Just outside of Florence was a toll booth, so we stopped at the gate. We looked and looked and could not figure out what to. Meanwhile cars are gathering behind us. A voice (in Italian, of course) comes out of the toll machine. I am sure he was telling us what to do. Unfortunately, because of our limited expertise in the Italian language, none of us could figure what he was saying. As the cars piled up behind us, a sterner voice and sounding exasperated(in Italian, of course) once again came on. Once again, we could not understand.

Finally after a few minutes (seemed longer) and about 30 cars later, a ticket magically appears and the gate opens. As I reach to grab it, a voice (this time in perfect English) says in a tone I will never forget, "Take the ticket and go away!" We laughed for about ten minutes, and that line was used throughout our trip.
((H))

Oaktown Traveler wrote:
>> It was my first day in LONDON. I was stepping into the street to cross after I had looked to the left...
Cars in London, on my side of the street were coming from the right...
I was nearly flattened sans the people YELLING at me to STOP! <<

Sadly, I did not hear the people yelling and got hit by a car in London.

Back to the yelling that I did hear: I got kicked out of St. Peter's twice, once for sitting in a pew reading a Time Magazine and once for resting (lying down) in a pew.

The amazing thing is we were not yelled at. We were driving in Canada (sorry, not Europe) and my husband's foot got a bit heavy on the gas pedal. We were pulled over by a Canadian Mounty (lovely uniforms) and he cheerfully and very politely suggested to my husband that we could enjoy the scenery if he drove a bit more slowly, i.e. the speed limit!

I was terribly impressed by the Mounties. Such good manners.

I like this thread. It just goes to show that acting perfectly at all times is pretty difficult to accomplish!

I got yelled at (in Danish) the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen because I was taking a plastic bag into the gallery.

Oh yes, I should mention that we did stay within the speed limit the rest of the trip.

I was in Bangkok visiting the Grand Palace with a couple of young-uns. I had told them to wear long pants over their jogging shorts, long-sleeved shirts, and generally to stay well covered up.

After we had toured the Grand Palace and were outside the Palace grounds, one of the young-un slipped her long pants off revealing her shorts. It was TERRIBLY hot and she was perspiring profusely.

A woman came over immediately and told us that we were being immensely disrespectful. We felt very embarrassed. 50 feet more and it probably wouldn't have been so "disrespectful". :(

Right here in NYC. I had just moved here and I needed to learn the subway system. The signage underground in the 70's was dreadful as were the platforms and the trains. I found myself on a dual-direction platform in Times Square and I wanted to go Downtown but I couldn't tell which trains ran south. After watching several trains come and go and thousands of people pass me by (it was evening rush hour), I decided I would ask a friendly passerby which side went Downtown. As I carefully scrutinized people more closely, trying to figure out who would be the nicest person to ask, I spotted this heavy-set woman with a roller-set hairdo, dressed in a pale-blue business suit. Perfect, I thought, and I went up to her and tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, but would you mind telling me which trains are going Downtown?"

She turned to me and yelled, "DON'T YOU EVER TOUCH ME! WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO TOUCH ME? HOW DARE YOU TOUCH ME!" She just kept on yelling as she walked away from me. I was horrified by the insanity of this moment, I ran upstairs, forfeited my token, and hailed a cab to 23rd Street. So much for my first NYC subway lesson.

In friendly Ohio, we touched people to get their attention. I learned the hard way that you DON'T ever touch a New York stranger. Frankly, you should never touch anyone you don't know. Lesson learned.

Paris, first day, walking around with my friend we wandered into a very festive hooker infested area. We saw a great photo opp, a huge sign of the store called.. hmmm something you could also call a cat.

With camera ready a madamish woman came running out waving her finger wildly at us yelling no photo, no photo!

We left with no photo and feeling about 5 years old... Wish I had taken it now.

I was yelled at in a shoe store in Frankfurt. I picked up a single shoe on display to show the clerk which style I wanted to try on. Apparently I should not have picked up the shoe, but only pointed to it. Who knew?

We were scolded (not really yelled at) by a French woman for being "insensitive" and "disrespectful" when taking photos graveside in a small Mexican town on Day of the Dead. After she finished berating us, the family at the grave motioned us over and offered us homemade mescal. They thought the whole thing was pretty funny.

I'm sure there are more, but I've repressed them out of shame.

Hmmm, I have been yelled at so many times it is hard to choose.

The first time I went to Paris I was with a man who was headstrong about driving his way. When we went to Versailles he made a wrong turn and turning a deaf ear to my directions, we wound up driving around and around the horse fountain. Guards started yelling at us so he made a turn up a pedestrian walkway and parked under some trees. Guards came running and surrounded us, he spoke to them in French (which I didn't understand) and in a few minutes they were all laughing and they let us park there.

The first time I went to Italy, a girlfriend and I stopped in a local bar/cafe in a small town to use the toilet. We crept past some men playing cards and went into the backroom where the WC sign was posted.

She went in first and when she flushed the toilet the water would not stop running over the bowl, she opened the door and water flowed towards the men. We stood frozen and when the water hit the nearest man's foot he jumped like he had been shot. There was a moment when no one moved, the men just looked at his wet feet and the water in amazement, time stood still. All at once he started yelling at us and the whole group joined in, she grabbed my arm and we fled past them to our car and made a fast getaway, but it was hard to drive as we were laughing so hard and I still had to "go"!

In Rome June 2001.
My friend went to buy takeaway coffee from a shop near Piazza Navone..
she asked for
"3 coffees, 2 lattes and a cappucino please"
she paid for 6 coffees!
I went back to the girl with the receipt and told her we had made a mistake. We wanted 2 lattes and a cappucino please....
well, she screamed a lot of Italian at us (she'd spoken English when we had ordered) and made a hell of a fuss.
Humbly...we took our receipt to the bar and got our 6 coffees!

i understand that taking photos in the amsterdam red light district is a major no no.

During my honeymoon cruise through the Greek Isles, my wife and I rented scooters on the island of Mykonos. We stood out as tourists because we were the only ones wearing these huge red helmets, while all the locals looked sexy/cool, with their hair blowing in the wind.

Well, we didn't get yelled at for looking like dorks as much as we got yelled at for accidentally driving the scooters down a very narrow street that turned out to be for pedestrians only. We were both almost pulled off the scooters and had to push them back uphill to get back to where we came.

The locals were not happy! :)