Recently in Travel Category

This summer, I was on a British Airways flight to France where they handed out snack boxes an hour or two before landing. I blearily opened the box and found the following inside the lid:

In case you can't read it, it says:

The first production of a croissant dates back to 1683. That year, Austria was under siege by the Turkish Empire. In Vienna, the Turkish assailant found that time was slipping past and decided to dig an underground tunnel to enter the city.

The bakers were thanked and they decided to make bread in the shape of a crescent moon (symbol of the Turkish flag) and the croissant was born. 100 years later, Marie Antoinette (Austrian Princess who married Louis XVI) introduced the croissant to the French Aristocrats.

It was only at the start of this century that the butter puff croissant was created, and became the French national product in 1920. Now the croissant is one of the most famous breakfast items in France & the rest of the world.

It looks like English, it sounds like English, and yet after reading it over repeatedly I still cannot understand it. What was Vienna's problem that they could not resist a lone Turkish assailant? Could the inhabitants not have just bopped him over the head and taken his shovel from him? What was the role of the bakers? What were they being thanked for? What prompted them to suddenly make crescent-shaped bread? Is it possible they were "spanked" rather than "thanked"? How did the croissant become the "French national product" in 1920? What was the French national product in 1919? (Guess it beats the French national product of 1789, the guillotine...)

Oh, and what's with the random capitalization? And starting a sentence with "100" instead of "One hundred"? Come on, British Airways, your country invented English. Have some standards!

And now, I want to go eat a croissant. Humph.

As I've mentioned before, back in my junior year, I spent a semester at Leicester University in the U.K. One of the more "holy ****, I'm not in California anymore" experiences I had was riding the paternoster to my English tutorials.

See for yourself, through the wonder of YouTube...

I guess most people just use their ATM/credit cards when traveling these days, but I am still quite unnerved by the fact that currency exchange booths in Amsterdam won't take dollars anymore.

Crisis? What crisis? Nothing to see here. (Whistles.)

So when we got back into the country after our trip, and were waiting at the conveyor belt for our bags to arrive, I noticed something weirdly disturbing. There's a computer monitor overhead. No big deal, there always is, isn't there, these days? A couple of years ago, I remember seeing one that showed a video about hoof-and-mouth disease, and the importance of preventing it from coming into the country.

They still are showing that (but isn't foot-and-mouth under control now?)... and much more.

We got treated to the dubious pleasure of a multimedia presentation on homeland security (g-d, I hate that phrase — what the heck was wrong with that cozy and perfectly functional word "domestic"?). It's been several days and I was brutally jetlagged at the time, but here's what I remember of it:

The screen displayed and a voice solemnly intoned words about how most travellers who come to this country are good people, but a few have bad intentions, and therefore they have the right to search your luggage and question you if need be. There's danger out there. The Department of Whatever has multiple missions and it's good at all of them. There was some random bit about how much alcohol you're allowed to bring into the country and that they'll confiscate it if you go over the line. "Your family, friends, and others will thank us now... you'll thank us later."

And, of course, cue the waving flags.

I'm not sure what offended me more... the not-so-subtle propaganda (Bush and Co. had their mark all over this one) or the horrendous use of type and color. Multiple fonts. Many 3-D type effects. Clashing colors. GAH!

I wonder how much was spent to produce this thing. More seriously, what is it meant to convey? It wasn't really useful. It certainly was unsettling for this citizen coming off a long flight. What message does it give a new visitor? Does it make them feel safe, welcome? Or do they feel like they've entered a place under siege?

Terrorists, I imagine, would just quietly chuckle to themselves and go on about their business.

Michael and I were in Arizona this past weekend volunteering for the Howard Dean campaign and visiting friends. It was quite the experience, for many reasons! I plan to write a longer post about it tomorrow because it's almost midnight. Goodnight!

OK, not really. but these are the photos from New Orleans that Michael took.