anotherjudy

Olive, that is hysterical!!
Judy

thomthumb

The only time that I was really yelled at on vacation was at the Grand Canyon.
Everytime my girlfriend turned around, I was venturing way past the marked "safe" areas. It's funny, I haven't heard my FULL name yelled at me since childhood! In my defense, once it was noticed that I'd blazed a "safe" trail, I usually got quite a following!

mignonette

After having lunch at the cafe at the Musee d'Orsay, I thought I would visit the ladies' facilities before leaving. I found a queue of at least 20 women waiting patiently down the corridor. Meanwhile the men's lavatories were empty. This was apparent to all because the door was open and the whole room could be seen. I decided to bypass the queue and use the men's toilets. It all went horribly wrong when I was sprung by an incredibly angry harridan of a cleaning woman as I washed my hands. In full view of the line of waiting women, I got a terrible ear-bashing in tack-spitting fast and furious French. I did my best to follow what she was on about but the gist was patently obvious. She was outraged and insisted I returned to the ladies' to complete my hand-washing.

PamSF

in Paris in a small "bar" in the 11th. We'd stopped in for breakfast while we waited for our wash to finish across the street. I have a great accent and only a very simple command of French. I asked for eggs and toast..the question came back how did I want those eggs and I sat with mouth agape..the question came back a good 5 times louder.


The second time was outside Florence when we were hopelessly lost trying to return our rental car. Having been on the autostrada to Livorna quite by mistake we managed to get back to outer Florence. I emerged from the car at a gas station and the man simply yelled "Siena" and pointed us in the right direction(at least for Siena).

sfowler

The last time I was yelled at [I must have blocked the others] was in the baggage claim area at O'Hare airport while I was waiting for my husband to return from a trip.

I had some time before my husband arrived so I moseyed over to the Welcometo Chicago desk, "personed" [you'll see why I use that term in a minute] by an older woman in a red suit. I made a few pleasantries, looked at the information, asked if I could take one of the folders and then, graciously, I thought, said something like "I'm really glad that you guys are here for the tourists" -- the woman jumped down my throat "DO I LOOK LIKE A GUY??" And continued in that vein for quite a bit -- I was stunned -- the irony is that I try to use gender inclusive language, but "guys" is so generic -- I'm afraid I yelled back though -- I mean "Holy s*** lady -- you're the person WELCOMING FOLKS to Chicago???

Marilyn

sfowler, that is so funny. I use "you guys" ALL the time and no one has ever yelled at me for it.

sandi_travelnut

In Oct. '02 my husband and I took our first trip to Paris. We were tired from walking all day and decided to take a cab to Rue du Dragon to a restaurant we had seen earlier. We got in, the taxi took off and I gave him the address in French. I don't speak much French but it's not very hard to say 8, Rue du Dragon in French. He absolutely could not understand the street name I had said. I said it over in best best accent. Still no understanding, so I spelled it in what I knew to be the correct pronunciation of the letters..still nothing and he was getting pretty rude about it. We asked him to stop at the next corner and we'd just walk the last 1/2 mile or so the the place. The fare was around 9 euro and my husband had a 20e bill. The cab driver flipped out. He began ranting and indicating that he had no change but that was the smallest bill we had. He stood his ground and my husband was forced to get out of the cab and try to get change for his bill. While I waited with the driver, we watched my husband pop into a small hoteland the a restaurant, this made the driver crazy. I had no idea what he was yelling at but he was pointing to my husband and yelling at me. What an ordeal that seemed unnecessary.

mabern2

The first time my husband and I were in France in 2002. We were at the train station in Colmar and we had purchased our secind phone card to make reservations for the night. My husband bought it from a vendor inside the station that also sold magazines and such. He came out and unwrapped it and I then proceeded to use it as we used that first one. But it would not work, it was giving us a message that it was invalid. After a few tries my husband went back to the vendor and told him what happened and the vendor got the message across that he did not understand what he was saying. My husband came back and I felt that I could do better (so I thought!!) so I took the card and went back to the vendor. Within 1 minute the man was gone and a woman was there. I kindly told her of our problem and she proceeded to tell me that since it was opened they would not replace it. I tried to explain that we still had the receipt that we had just bought it from here, but she would not budge. She then tried to sell me another and after I refused she lost her mind on me! She was yelling at me but I could not understand anything she was saying. I stood there stuned looking at her. It was such a scene that another man came up, asked what was happening and offered me his cell phone. I thanked him but I was to taken aback to even pull myself together to use it, and I didn't want to use up his cell minutes. We eventually figured we would just use our credit card, a bit more expensive, but at least it works!!! But after all of that Colmar wound up being one of my favorite cities!!!

travelin_guy

Sadly, I?ve been yelled at quite a few times (five that I could remember, but I narrowed it to the 2 most memorable).

1. Rome ? Fearing that we would be late for a soccer game, our group asked our waiter for ?il conto, per favore? three times. Each time we waited about ten or fifteen minutes before asking again. On the third attempt to retrieve our check, we tried to tell the waiter about being late for the game when we were rudely told to, ?Just be quite for 5 minutes.? We then sat for another ten minutes before getting up to leave. Upon seeing us depart our waiter stopped us with the check.

2. London ? While visiting the Tower of London, I tried to backtrack about 20 feet against the flow of visitors to revisit a display. A beefeater abruptly informed me that, ?In England, unlike some places, there is a system.? Curtly (and immaturely) I told him, ?I know, I learned all about the English system getting it?s ass kicked 220 years ago.?