Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Q. What does the optometrist say on his honeymoon?
A. “Do you like it like this–or like this? Good. Now, like this–or like this?”

I adore traveling, and part of what I love is finding out just how wrong I am about things I once imagined were always true.

Take kissing, for example. In the chilly parts of New England I grew up in, public kisses involve one warm peck on the cheek, given by parent to child, or by child to parent. Imagine my deer-in-the-headlights surprise when friendly strangers from Paris or New York* assumed I understood the “kiss kiss” hello.

Okay, I got to enjoy the “kiss kiss” hello. Then (wouldn’t you know!) I end up in the Netherlands where they do “kiss kiss kiss!” Until I caught on, I was the Queen of Kissus Interruptus.

Do you think I know how to buy a newspaper? Sure. In the US, the dialogue goes like this:

Me: Hi–just this paper, please.
Nick: Okay, it’s a dollar.
Me: Thanks, okay, here you are. (giving him a dollar).
Nick: Thanks–have a good day.
Me: Yeah, you too–bye!

Now, in Holland, my normal behavior is downright rude. Instead of a mere “hi”, I ought to say “Good afternoon.” Then, only after Niek** has responded with “Good afternoon,” can we begin to talk money and newspapers.

Suppose I’m in Sweden, and buying a paper from Nils. Well, my normal method is wrong, for the opposite reason. Here’s how you buy a newpaper in Stockholm:

Me: This paper.
Nils: 10 kronor.
Me: Here. (giving him 10 kronor.)
Nils: Here (giving me the paper.)

In Sweden, doing it my way–or the Dutch way–makes me sound like that amorous optometrist–so well-meaning, and so totally wrong.

I’ve long been a fan of the Swedish chef school of linguistics, but since I leave for Sweden on Tuesday it may just be time to gather my Swedish language emergency kit.

Those who remember my
quest for instant Czech won’t be surprise to hear that–thanks to the LCS Hockey Association’s website–I now can say things in Swedish that would surprise you:

Han finns de action? – Where is the action?

Har du sedd min kaslonger? – Have you seen my pants?

Langa de vin. – Pass the wine.

Jag var i Cleveland den vecka, officer. – I was in Cleveland that week, officer.

Du ar a illa skona kvinnor. – You are a very beautiful woman.

Skulle du lik att se de hem av a ensam, ensam man? – Would you like to see the home of a lonely, lonely man?

Nej, nej, ej de paprika sprej! – No, no, not the pepper spray!

At least I don’t have to learn Viking-coping phrases like “What a big ax!” and “I have no gold coins, but may I offer you this fine Timex watch?”

rubber duckies–and now there’s a $100 reward if you can find one.

Do you think they would give me maybe $5 for my old “Interactive Ducky animation” I made when I was learning Flash?

No, I don’t think so either. Oh well, tough duck, er, I mean luck.

Yellow alert!

This week, thousands of bleached and battered rubber duckies are expected to wash up on New England beaches. After a storm tossed them overboard in 1992, the duckies rode currents through the Arctic, the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. To quote the BBC story of their odyssey:

After falling overboard near the 45th parallel 11 years ago, the ducks floated along the Alaskan coast, reaching the Bering Strait in 1995.

It is thought they were trapped by slow moving ice for several years – it took them until 2000 to reach Iceland. A year later, they were tracked in the area of the north Atlantic where the Titanic sank.

During their voyage, some of the ducks broke away – and headed for Europe – others have surfaced in Hawaii.

I’m glad Niek will also have the chance to find an adventurous yellow duckie–I sure will be looking out for one for myself! Meanwhile, up in heaven, Jim Henson is chuckling as he sings Ernie’s favorite song.

Thanks to Frank Paynter pointing out this duck tale!

“Prague is the birthplace of Don Giovanni, Franz Kafka, and the General Theory of Relativity.”

Frank Wilczek, July 2003

• This “City of 500 Spires” is a patchwork of Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, Art Nouveau, and modern buildings.
• Comparing a narrow, tangled lane like Karlova to the brilliantly planned streets and markets of Nove Mesto–founded in 1348–I understood that “Medieval” covers a huge range of time and thought.
• When I bought some hand-made silver-and-shell jewelry, the craftswoman warmly added a small free card to each gift –“Look, it is a menstruation calendar!” she explained.
• Many delightfully Baroque buildings rest on thousand-year-old arch-vaulted, echoing Medieval cellars–one excellent reason to visit the restroom in every possible cafe.

Prague is lovely, cobbled underfoot and Baroque-d above, full of local fun things you can eat and drink outdoors for not much money.

The Golem hasn’t haunted me–nor have the ghosts of Franz Kafka (who lived here) and Tycho Brahe (who died here (Did you know that Brahe had a silver nose to hide his normal nose, mostly missing after a duel? (But I digress.) ) .)

This post is my complaint against Czech keyboards! They seem to have hidden their exclamation points–and when you are trying to send email from a smoke-filled Internet cafe, it is irksome to sit staring at an almost-familiar keyboard that is missing one thing I almost always need!!

Fortunately, my little sister responded to my cry for help with enough !!!!!!!!! so that I can copy and paste them all day long. What a good sister!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bless you, Marie, and thank you all for listening.

I’m enjoying the heck out of Lonely Planet’s Czech phrasebook–can you tell that I really ought to be packing instead?

Here are two “found poems” based on their useful suggestions:

1. Glad (sort of) I’m not that young anymore

Kiss me.
Kiss me.
Take this off.
Kiss me.
That was amazing.
Will you marry me?
Would you like a cigarette?
Kiss me.
Do you feel like going for a run?

2. But, Officer….

What am I accused of?
You will be charged with no visa.
You will be charged with traffic violation.
You will be charged with murder.
Just joking!
Kiss me.

One set of phrases offered by Lonely Planet has really made me wonder:

• I’m sorry, it’s not the custom in my country.
• I’m sorry, it’s against my beliefs/culture/religion.
• I don’t mind watching, but I prefer not to participate.

What are these phrases used for–bear-baiting? cannibalism? ethnic jokes? I’ll let you all know if I ever find out. But for now, darn it, Betsy, will you go pack?!!!???

In Czechoslovakia, the polite guest brings flowers–an odd number, please–with no wrapping paper around them. Shoes are left by the door. Don’t eat or drink before wishing the others good health.

The Lonely Planet phrasebook is full of good advice for travelers much more adventurous than I am. I hope I won’t need Czech phrases for “Do you have a condom?” or “I’m on methadone.”

I love to travel and I love to learn about places I visit, most especially their languages. You can do lots more stuff when you speak and/or read the native tongue–even in the Netherlands where everyone speaks English the train stations and museums are a lot more fun if you can read some Dutch. But we’ll be in Prague just a week, so I have merely stocked up my “Language Emergency Kit”–ten rock-bottom minimum sentences for any trip:

1. Where’s the bathroom? (gdeh yeh zah-khod?)
2. Thank you very much. (dyeh-kuh-yi mots-kraht)
3. Please. (pro-seem)
4. Yes. (ah-no, sometimes abbreviated “no”–nod head as you say it.)
5. No. (neh– shake head as you say it.)
6. No, thank you. (neh, dyeh-ku-yi)
7. I’m sorry. (yeh meh leeto).
8. My husband is vegetarian. (mooy man-zhel yeh ve-ge-ta-ri-ahn)
9. Does this dish have meat? (yeh ftom-hle yeed-le ma-so?)
10. Is there a local Internet cafe? (yeh tah-di in-ter-net ka-vah-na?)

The good:

Cape Cod’s North Shore is full of

• quaking bogs
• anadromous fish runs
• salt marshes
• other places known as “critical habitats“

Cape Cod’s South Shore is full of

• fried-clam-shacks
• taffy shops
• miniature golf
• other places known as “tourist traps.”

I absolutely love both kinds of places.

The bad:

Little-bitty teentsy-beentsy roads, filled up with stop-and-go traffic. Amazingly (to this veteran Boston driver) other cars stop to let you into their lane!

The ugly (do you really want to know?):

In all of the mid-Cape region where I was staying, the only Web-connection was one (1) Kinko’s in Hyannis–with exactly three (3) computers. Of these, one (1) was busy. One (1) was a Mac, still using OS 9 (nine).

The third (3rd)–a nice young man warned me–had a “problem” with printing. I soon found out why–it was completely offline–no printer, no server–and no (zip, zero, 0, also zilch) Internet connection!

God bless the old Mac, where I slowly emptied my totally full hotmail mailbox, and even posted Gollum to this blog.

David Weinberger is off to Vienna. I will now sublimate jealous feelings about Vienna and urge you to join me in figuring out why marble statues remind us of piled-high blopples of whipped cream.

Marble, like whipped cream, reflects our aspirations better than our reality. (“Look Ma, no pores”?) The baroque marble statues that punctuate Vienna live in a world of statuesque pure-white nudity, far from the multi-colored multiplicity of naked human skin.

Heaps of whipped cream also look beautiful. Creamy billows and ruffles and bulges and ripples and flows. Mmmmm–piles of whipped cream have luxuriant body shapes–don’t you agree?

Heaping whipped cream on stuff makes it taste more delicious–sweet stuff, like ice cream or strawberries–strong stuff like black, black, black Viennese black coffee. (My brother Mark used to put herb butter on steak–mmm–admit we’re talking some super-whipped-cream here!)

Can I make this the test of good-versus-evil? If marble, like whipped cream, increases our appetite for a “main event” more real than the decoration, isn’t that good? Yes! It is good.

Have a good time in Vienna, darn it, David.