Quick-- Take Them To the Tower!

Some things America probably just needs to keep to itself. Among these, I'd suggest episodes of "Kath and Kim," our noseless Michael Jackson, and select tourists.

I have a tale to tell you about that last one.

About a decade ago, one of my buds and I took a trip to England. Oh, we had it all planned out for maximum vacay enjoyment!

Five glorious action-packed, Guinness-marinaded, art-infused, wax-museumed, Royal-Guard-pestering, tea-in-the-crypt-sipping, brass-rubbing, Tube-riding, Harrods-shopping, standing-stone-seeing, toad-in-the-hole-eating days in London, Bath and Stonehenge!

If ya don't need a holiday to recover after you come back, it just wasn't a good vacation!

Included in this trip were a couple of tours: a London city tour, a tour of the Tower of London, and a boat ride down the Thames.

And it was over the course of them, we encountered the... er... rich multi-dimensional tableau of American exported humanity.

I've often wondered why it is that the people who seem to know the least about things are the ones who always have so much to say on these tours?

Like the college girl who was chatting away to her boyfriend for most of our city tour, making it impossible to hear what the tourguide was saying. By St. Paul's Cathedral, as the guide showed us where the building was damaged due to Hitler's bombs, she paused long enough to hear the guide mention "World War II."

That's when she hit the guide with her contribution to English history:

"Well, England wasn't really involved in World War II... You know, like, not one of the major players...?"

The tourguide's mouth dropped open like an astounded codfish. But I imagine it wasn't the worst thing she'd heard during her career.

The worst thing might have been from a couple that my friend and I dubbed "The Plaids."

Mrs. Plaid was a 60-something lady in a plaid skirt and blazer. Mr. Plaid, a sixty-something man in plaid sports jacket and hat.

I imagine they thought they would blend right in once they got to Scotland.

The Plaids were a loud couple who, like the college girl, used speech as a soundtrack to life. Within five minutes, everyone in London knew all about them.

They were from the midwest and given the scope of their European tour, it sounded less like they were touring, and more like a whirlwind takeover.

They'd already been able to check off Italy, France and Spain from their list, they said, and once they hit the UK, they were headed onto Norway before heading back home to Flatland, USA.

Herb Plaid fancied himself a skilled photographer. Yes, he'd spent an evening with his high-tech photography equipment trying to get the Eiffel Tower to hold still and say "fromage." Herb was a perfectionist, Doris Plaid said.

"He also took pictures of that famous river there... you know the one... what was it called?... The Seen?"

So, as these sorts of things go, it wasn't much of a surprise that, when it was time for our boat ride down the Thames, we found the Plaids placed at our table.

We strained to hear the guide over the loudspeaker as Mr. and Mrs. Plaid oohed and ahhed over boats and bridges and ducks and oh, stray Newcastle bottles... Mr. Plaid pushing us aside with his telephoto so he could get the perfect shot.

And then we came to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. The guide announced them over the loudspeaker and pointed off the proper side of the boat.

The Plaids, however, were still talking, so it took a moment to register. We had just passed the Tower of London when when Mrs. Plaid got really excited:

"Look! Is that it? That must be the Tower of London."

"What? Where?"

"There! There, see?? Up ahead!"

"Oh yes! There it is!" And Mr. Plaid leaned all over us again to get a shot of...

"The Tower. A Thistle Hotel."

It was printed on the side of the building in bright lights.


It's since changed hands. Which is nice, really. Because that means the Plaids had forever captured on film the deep enlightening history of... a hotel chain.


So tell me, folks, about your funny tourist experiences!

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The US Goodwill Ambassador to Shmertz

As I was making reservations to visit the Pop in the Florida Keys this Thanksgiving, I had a flashback to my, er, travel challenges of last year.

I had used a rental car company-- let's call it Shmertz-- to get from Miami Airport to my hotel, and from my hotel to the Pop's domicile. And as a result, I had one of the more surreal travel experiences I can recall.

It was the day before Thanksgiving. My plane had gotten in a bit early, and everything had been smooth up until this point. So like those moments where Indiana Jones smiles cockily because he's just blown up, like, twelve Nazis and escaped, I was pleased with myself. And should have known things would go awry from here.

My rental reservation information indicated that the Shmertz rental desk was inside the airport. So I headed down to baggage claim to where the rental desks were.

Only that entire area was gone. And by gone, I mean, the rental desks were gone. The signs were gone. Even the floor tiles were missing.

I went off to find an airport map.

A thorough analysis of the map showed every rest room, lounge, hot dog stand and souvenir shop... except for baggage claim level.

So after losing a half-hour, I finally asked someone in Missing Baggage. I figured missing the rental car desk was close enough.

"Oh," said the Missing Baggage Dude, "those desks are gone."

"Um, yes."

"You need to go outside and stand and wait for a shuttle to Shmertz."

So dragging my suitcase, I went into the oppressive Miami heat and exhaust fumes.

Ten minutes later, I found a sign on a concrete median which read "Shmertz." So I parked my luggage and I waited.

Shmelamo went by.... And Shminterprise... And Shmarvis.... And Shmarry's SuperCheapo GoCart Rental...

No Shmertz.

I noticed next to me, two tall German men with poofy hair-- one blonde, one brunette-- were watching the various shuttles come through like a particularly intense tennis match. "Is it....? Yes? Yes?.... AWWWWWW.... It isn't."

"Are you waiting for Shmertz, too?" I asked.

Siegfried and Roy looked at me with surprise. "Why, yes, vee are," said Roy. Or was it Siegfried?

"How long have you been waiting?"

"Tventy minutes," said Siegfried wearily. Or maybe it was Roy. "Ze Shmertz shuttles, I see zem come around zat corner, but zen they go zat vay." He pointed to a median three down from ours, and then the exit from the airport.

Siegfried, Roy and I gathered up our stuff and move to the other median.

Well, such went another half hour. Shuttle after shuttle headed to the median-- and then passed us by and took the exit, filled to capacity.

We waited so long, Siegfried and Roy decided to take a cab. They'd pick up the white tigers later, I guess. And me, after forty minutes I managed to climb onto the roof-rack of a passing bus and get a lift.

(Okay, so maybe I just squeezed on to one bus because I wasn't a family of 37. But still. Same diff.)

So at Shmertz, once again, optimism was in my heart, because I am stupid like that. Even with the delays, and the hour-and-a-half drive ahead of me, I figured I'd get down to the Keys in decent time.

I used the automated check-in machine that said there would be a compact car waiting for me in the parking lot. I could just take whatever car I liked in that particular size, and that seemed so fun... so marvelous... I couldn't wait to try it.

It was like legalized car theft. Or being really, really rich. So I hurried to the parking lot, luggage trailing behind me and....

There was not a single car in the lot.

I looked at the Compacts sign. I looked at the empty spaces.

I looked at the Sub-Compact sign. I looked at the empty spaces.

Things didn't bode well.

A different set of German tourists were now with me, wandering around the Compact/SubCompact area in the intense heat and glare of the sun.

"Zer is no cars. Ver are ze cars? Is zis how zey do sings in America?"

"Er, no. This is an anomaly," I told them. And then I spent a few minutes trying really hard to build morale and act as a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.S...

Kinda like Angelina Jolie, you know, but without ten kids and Brad Pitt following me around.

But I don't think the tourists bought it.

Finally, as self-assigned Ambassador to Shmertz, I went to talk to one of the guys milling around in the Shmertz vests. He was speaking rapid Spanish to another guy in a Shmertz vest and ignoring all the lost customers wandering the parking lot.

"Um, hi. We..." And here I motioned to myself and a growing group of Germans, "we don't know what to do next. The paperwork says take any car in your size, but there aren't any cars there."

The Shmertz employee looked at me blankly. Just about the time I was wondering if I could cobble the same phrase together in Spanish, he scowled and said, "They're coming, they're coming. Go wait by your sign. You can't stand here. Go wait."

So I went back to the Compact/Sub-compact area, and relayed the information to Germany.

Naturally, the Germans weren't thrilled. Having not been in the States for more than two hours, their first impression of the place had already been fairly tainted by poor planning and pulsing heat.

More time passed. The sun was dipping in the sky. The crowd in the Sub-Compact area was huge by this time-- now including France, England and Newark, New Jersey. And I was now a solitary figure across the aisle in Compacts. I had pulled out a book and was using my suitcase as a lumpy chair.

Suddenly, someone started yelling at me in Spanish, then switched to English. "You! You move! You can't sit there. They're coming. They're coming."

And he had me move out of one of the empty Compact car spots as a wet Chevy HHR came swinging around.

More Compact cars were being pulled in, one by one. All wet, all narrowly mowing down the folks waiting for the Sub-Compacts that had yet to come.

The Sub-Compact people looked on sadly, as I guiltily grabbed the HHR. I saw their drawn, sunburnt faces in my rearview mirror as I pulled away.

But while I might have seemed the lucky one, the Travel fates weren't done with me yet. As I left the Shmertz rental behind, none of us knew what would happen next.

None of us imagined that the sign at the end of the Shmertz rental car drive, pointing toward the very highway I needed in giant letters?

Due to recent road construction, it pointed the exact opposite direction from the actual road. I would find this out as I drove lost and confused in the middle of Miami on unfamiliar streets in the increasing darkness, squinting in the dim light to read my Rand McNally directions.

I am trying Shmollar Rent-a-car this year. And I'm trying to keep the optimism at bay.

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