Almost six weeks ago we started the process to get our flight home scheduled. The flight is taken care of by the university so naturally buying the tickets gets outsourced to a consulting agency. Time ticked by and yesterday we were finally heard back from the consulting agency with our reservation.
We're leaving here early in the morning on August 4th and get back to Detroit by the afternoon of the 4th. We're flying Lufthansa because they have the best pet program of the airlines that fly from Jeddah. I flew Lufthansa when I first visited Saudi back in 2009 and I remember them being nicer than most airlines.
We also got Algebra registered with the airline, and it ended up being hilarious to listen to Steve talk with their representative on the phone. The first call involved spelling out our names using the Alpha/Bravo military technique. The second call was even funnier because the representative thought we wanted to take a baby on the flight. So when Steve said that we already had a carrier and were going to put her under the seat, I think the representative thought we were crazy! I of course didn't hear all of this, and just got the quotation "This is an animal, not a baby!"
We're just getting started on all of the things we need to do before we leave. Aside from the typical packing, discarding junk, and cleaning, the administrative side to leaving is impressive. We need 7 signatures from departments across the university, exit visas, a housing inspection, 6 cards turned in, a mailbox to close, and a bank account to close. All of that is going to result in a lot of needless running around in the next month or so! I'm impressed that they managed to condense all of that running around into a single one page form, but I was less impressed when they tried to tell me it was prohibited to fold it because it would need to be filed. Needless to say, that paper got folded.
So, we're coming home, and so far (almost) nothing has been screwed up! Let's all keep our fingers crossed that it stays this way!
Showing posts with label funny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label funny. Show all posts
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Italy: Day 2
Day 2 started with eating a strange breakfast and shopping for new shoes. Breakfast was strange and funny because we couldn’t easily communicate with the café owner where we stopped. We were trying to figure out if they served breakfast foods beyond croissants and coffee, and he insisted that we sit and eat. Turns out, they didn’t really serve “normal” breakfast and they brought us a sandwich menu. Therefore, our first breakfast in Milan was delicious lunch sandwiches. Milanians didn’t speak much if any English, so we had a ton of comedic moments like this during our trip.
Next we went shopping for some new shoes for me, because mine were totally worn out, and my feet were already starting to hurt. We had meant to go to Jeddah for shoes before we left for Italy, but never had the time or the desire to make it. After being shocked by the ridiculous prices for impractical shoes for walking, we went to a Merrell store (Steve suggested it). We paid a lot, but the shoes are fantastic.
Next we went shopping for some new shoes for me, because mine were totally worn out, and my feet were already starting to hurt. We had meant to go to Jeddah for shoes before we left for Italy, but never had the time or the desire to make it. After being shocked by the ridiculous prices for impractical shoes for walking, we went to a Merrell store (Steve suggested it). We paid a lot, but the shoes are fantastic.
After we took care of breakfast and shoes, we went to a public park for almost the entire day. The park was very pretty, with nice gravel paths and little ponds. It was so nice to see so many people out enjoying the wonderful spring weather. The natural history museum was right inside the park, so we went through that. They had some amazing minerals, and great fossils. There was a whole floor of dioramas of different environments, complete with stuffed animals, and most of them looked very realistic.
Napping in the park.
Beautiful arched ceilings in a nearby building.
Donkey on exhibit in the museum.
Pretty minerals on display
We debated going to a nearby art gallery, but neither of us have a strong love of art so we actually ended up seeing very little of it throughout our trip.
We also saw these awesome bike rental areas on our walk back to the hotel. They were all over Milan and we saw a lot of people out riding the bikes. We both wanted to ride them, but never got a chance. I think it’s great that the city is willing to encourage alternative transportation methods, because the traffic in Milan was loud!
Follow our journey:
Or check out our Italy tag!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
New Campus Signs
Some new official signs have popped up on campus, and I think they're pretty funny.
I'm not sure why we need signs designating Assembly areas and I've never had anyone say what an Assembly area is for, but now they're well marked with these snazzy new signs. I'm more worried about the fourth person who lost either his body while assembling, or the second one who gained an extra head.
These signs and their opposites showed up on the apartment buildings that house single students. I don't know who is in charge of ordering or making signs on campus, but I'm pretty sure they need that privilege revoked. I definitely feel like there is an "a" and maybe an "are" missing here, but who knows maybe the school's official language was switched to pidgin.
Every time I see these signs, I get a bit of a laugh, so here's to hoping there are more in the future!
Every time I see these signs, I get a bit of a laugh, so here's to hoping there are more in the future!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Roommate Antics
When we stayed in Cairo, it was cheap enough that we could easily justify a private double room, but since Europe is as a whole, much more expensive than Cairo, we went with a shared room for our stay. Neither of us really knew what to expect, and that has definitely lead to some interesting experiences. The 13 day length our our stay also meant that we got to see more than a few roommates come and go, so here's a not so brief retelling of some of the funniest, or funnest parts of sharing a room with strangers.
Guy 1: An Iranian guy who is living and working in Norway. He was only around for one night, which was unfortunate because he seemed nice enough and sat and talked to us for a while about Iran and some of the religious and political goings ons. He said interesting and hopeful things, which don't bear repeating here on the interwebs. What's interesting is I really don't know whether to believe him or not. Since the building blocks of our opinion about Iran come from mainstream American media, that doesn't leave a lot of faith that what we think we know is accurate. I think it's an area that I would certainly benefit from learning more about.
Guy 2: Oh my goodness, what a series of inappropriate words could be used to describe him. A cultural studies professor out of England, he enlightened us with quips like "they can just be housewives and mothers" when talking about women in Saudi Arabia and a broad sweeping review that "there was nothing to do in Athens besides the Acropolis." Surprisingly despite his prediction that Athens was a barren, boring city, we managed to have a great time for almost two weeks. Now I seriously question what kind of cultural teaching is being done in England if this is at all representative. He also snored louder than a trucker, a freight train, or any other typically loud object used for comparisons. So loud in fact that we bought ear plugs so we could sleep!
Guys 3 & 4: In and Out. They were only here a couple of days, and generally kept to themselves.
Guy 5: Rolled in on New Year's Eve, which I thought was strange, but I felt pretty bad for him the next morning after a night of Guy 2's epic evening performance. He certainly looked worse for the wear.
Guy 6: Professor from the US. A super nice guy, traveling around while in between semesters, like us! It was nice to reconnect with an American and chit chat about life in US compared to Saudi. He was a really nice guy and was in Athens for the remainder of the time we were. He came to Athens to get ready for teaching a new class about mythology; how cool is it that we have teachers willing to go that far to get ready to teach!
Guy 7: One night in and out. A guy from England just here for one night which was too bad, he seemed pretty nice. (easy on the eyes too)
At this point Guy 2 had to move to a different room, please know that we were not missing him at all.
Guy 8: Canadian who worked for the Google for the last few years. Arrived same time as Guy 9 who also happened to work at Google for a large amount of time. These two spent a solid 10 minutes recapping the building layout of Mountain View identifying similar Google buildings they worked in. Then they got on Google maps so they could proceed to look at the buildings. Aka super geeks? He also liked to use the phrase "mickey mouse" a lot, which I thought was kind of hilarious.
Guy 9: From England, pretty interesting except for the long forays into the location of Google buildings, foreigners and taxes, and politics in general. Aka bore my socks off guy.
Guy 10: Australian guy. Nice enough, but a little too dependent on everyone else to find places to eat/things to do.
So it was definitely an interesting experience sharing a room with so many different people! When we travel again over Spring Break, we'll probably end up sharing a room again unless we go somewhere cheaper than Europe.
*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*
Catch up on the rest of our adventure:
Athens Day 1
Traveling Back to Saudi Arabia
Small Math Problems and 4 Modes of Transportation
Restoring Faith in Traveling
Playing the Ethics Card
Changing Perspectives on Cash v. Debit
Athens: Day 2
Guy 1: An Iranian guy who is living and working in Norway. He was only around for one night, which was unfortunate because he seemed nice enough and sat and talked to us for a while about Iran and some of the religious and political goings ons. He said interesting and hopeful things, which don't bear repeating here on the interwebs. What's interesting is I really don't know whether to believe him or not. Since the building blocks of our opinion about Iran come from mainstream American media, that doesn't leave a lot of faith that what we think we know is accurate. I think it's an area that I would certainly benefit from learning more about.
Guy 2: Oh my goodness, what a series of inappropriate words could be used to describe him. A cultural studies professor out of England, he enlightened us with quips like "they can just be housewives and mothers" when talking about women in Saudi Arabia and a broad sweeping review that "there was nothing to do in Athens besides the Acropolis." Surprisingly despite his prediction that Athens was a barren, boring city, we managed to have a great time for almost two weeks. Now I seriously question what kind of cultural teaching is being done in England if this is at all representative. He also snored louder than a trucker, a freight train, or any other typically loud object used for comparisons. So loud in fact that we bought ear plugs so we could sleep!
Guys 3 & 4: In and Out. They were only here a couple of days, and generally kept to themselves.
Guy 5: Rolled in on New Year's Eve, which I thought was strange, but I felt pretty bad for him the next morning after a night of Guy 2's epic evening performance. He certainly looked worse for the wear.
Guy 6: Professor from the US. A super nice guy, traveling around while in between semesters, like us! It was nice to reconnect with an American and chit chat about life in US compared to Saudi. He was a really nice guy and was in Athens for the remainder of the time we were. He came to Athens to get ready for teaching a new class about mythology; how cool is it that we have teachers willing to go that far to get ready to teach!
Guy 7: One night in and out. A guy from England just here for one night which was too bad, he seemed pretty nice. (easy on the eyes too)
At this point Guy 2 had to move to a different room, please know that we were not missing him at all.
Guy 8: Canadian who worked for the Google for the last few years. Arrived same time as Guy 9 who also happened to work at Google for a large amount of time. These two spent a solid 10 minutes recapping the building layout of Mountain View identifying similar Google buildings they worked in. Then they got on Google maps so they could proceed to look at the buildings. Aka super geeks? He also liked to use the phrase "mickey mouse" a lot, which I thought was kind of hilarious.
Guy 9: From England, pretty interesting except for the long forays into the location of Google buildings, foreigners and taxes, and politics in general. Aka bore my socks off guy.
Guy 10: Australian guy. Nice enough, but a little too dependent on everyone else to find places to eat/things to do.
So it was definitely an interesting experience sharing a room with so many different people! When we travel again over Spring Break, we'll probably end up sharing a room again unless we go somewhere cheaper than Europe.
*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*
Catch up on the rest of our adventure:
Athens Day 1
Traveling Back to Saudi Arabia
Small Math Problems and 4 Modes of Transportation
Restoring Faith in Traveling
Playing the Ethics Card
Changing Perspectives on Cash v. Debit
Athens: Day 2
Friday, January 7, 2011
Small Math Problems and 4 Modes of Transportation
Let's just say you wanted to go visit the Attica Zoo while enjoying a nice two week vacation in Athens. Everything you've read says that this place is pretty awesome, and it's even open on the 6th, which is a big holiday in Greece when very little is open. Now, if it's only about 20 miles from your hostel to the zoo and you're taking public transportation, what would you consider a reasonable travel time?
If you said 3 and a half hours, well you're a pessimist by all standards, but unfortunately correct. It gets even worse once I tell you that the first 3 hours of our trip back from the zoo traveled us a mere 5.5 miles. Yes, we could have walked faster than the first two buses we took. Before you worry too much, we didn't actually spend that entire time traveling, close to an hour of it was spent waiting for the buses to come pick us up, and a good half an hour was spent sitting on the bus going nowhere. Why were we sitting on the side of the road in a bus going nowhere? While that's a good question, I haven't the slightest idea what the answer might be.
With the exception of the buses which are kind of crazy, the public transportation here in Athens is pretty stellar. They have a metro, a train, buses, and of course your own two feet. They also seem to have bus drivers who care a ton about their buses, which would explain why we were very loudly scolded (yelled at) in Greek for propping our feet up on the bus seats while sitting on a bus going nowhere. The wild gesticulations only added to the humor, and while we could tell what we had done wrong, there was really nothing we could do but sit and try not to laugh while a middle aged guy was carrying on most likely along the lines of... kids these days, disrespectful Americans, in my day we never... etc. The whole situation was both shocking and hilarious, because when you're shouting at someone who doesn't understand a word your saying, it's like shouting at a brick wall, and at that point, save your breath and your dignity and move on.
*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*
If you said 3 and a half hours, well you're a pessimist by all standards, but unfortunately correct. It gets even worse once I tell you that the first 3 hours of our trip back from the zoo traveled us a mere 5.5 miles. Yes, we could have walked faster than the first two buses we took. Before you worry too much, we didn't actually spend that entire time traveling, close to an hour of it was spent waiting for the buses to come pick us up, and a good half an hour was spent sitting on the bus going nowhere. Why were we sitting on the side of the road in a bus going nowhere? While that's a good question, I haven't the slightest idea what the answer might be.
With the exception of the buses which are kind of crazy, the public transportation here in Athens is pretty stellar. They have a metro, a train, buses, and of course your own two feet. They also seem to have bus drivers who care a ton about their buses, which would explain why we were very loudly scolded (yelled at) in Greek for propping our feet up on the bus seats while sitting on a bus going nowhere. The wild gesticulations only added to the humor, and while we could tell what we had done wrong, there was really nothing we could do but sit and try not to laugh while a middle aged guy was carrying on most likely along the lines of... kids these days, disrespectful Americans, in my day we never... etc. The whole situation was both shocking and hilarious, because when you're shouting at someone who doesn't understand a word your saying, it's like shouting at a brick wall, and at that point, save your breath and your dignity and move on.
*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
English or Um Sort Of
We've had a really interesting time handling some of the language barriers that appear when dealing with non native English speakers, and we thought we'd share some of our more funny experiences with you guys.
When we were in Cairo, we saw a couple of laughable English translation errors at the military museum.
Apparently they have trouble spelling trebuchet too, but since it's from French, that might have something to do with it.
Poor Jimmy Carter had to meet with the Prim Minister, I bet he was just a buzz kill. I think I've heard of that place Israil, isn't that the one with all of the great trains? And I bet Obama didn't realize that he was living in the Light House. Or maybe it was renamed sometime since Jimmy Carter was president? There are several other errors here too, but these were just three of the six or so problems with that sign.
This photo showed up in our Cairo recap, but since it has an important message, we'll highlight it again.
We got a cryptic text message a few weeks ago from the vet clinic that services campus. See if you can translate the "text" speak into real sentences:
That clinic can text like a champ. In case you couldn't figure it out, they were trying to say "Good morning. This is from the Happy Vet Clinic. Sorry to inform you that the vaccines for cats are not yet available. Thanks."
And finally, Steve found a great vibrating reindeer toy for ages 3+ advertising "Provides infinite pleasure." Enough said.
When we were in Cairo, we saw a couple of laughable English translation errors at the military museum.
Apparently they have trouble spelling trebuchet too, but since it's from French, that might have something to do with it.
Poor Jimmy Carter had to meet with the Prim Minister, I bet he was just a buzz kill. I think I've heard of that place Israil, isn't that the one with all of the great trains? And I bet Obama didn't realize that he was living in the Light House. Or maybe it was renamed sometime since Jimmy Carter was president? There are several other errors here too, but these were just three of the six or so problems with that sign.
This photo showed up in our Cairo recap, but since it has an important message, we'll highlight it again.
Remember, "The Safaty Fitst" always!
We got a cryptic text message a few weeks ago from the vet clinic that services campus. See if you can translate the "text" speak into real sentences:
"gud a.m. this fr. happy pet vet clnc, sori 2 inform u that d vaccines 4 cats are not yet available. tnx"
That clinic can text like a champ. In case you couldn't figure it out, they were trying to say "Good morning. This is from the Happy Vet Clinic. Sorry to inform you that the vaccines for cats are not yet available. Thanks."
And finally, Steve found a great vibrating reindeer toy for ages 3+ advertising "Provides infinite pleasure." Enough said.
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