Chuckles in Europe

I chuckle when i think back to our Europe trip this summer. Here are a few reasons why.

Mercedes Episode
We reserved the cheapest car the rental company had to drive from Heidelberg to Walldorf for some business meetings. When we picked up the car, it had no headrests which I thought might be important amenities while driving on the autobahn. So, the only car left was a C class Mercedes which we happily took. We even had a GPS!

We jumped in the car and started checking everything out. First was to get the GPS in English. Then we realized we didnt know how to work this GPS, so out came the owners manual...in German. I needed a translator to translate our GPS! We realized, somehow, that we had to load a CD - and after that things seemed to make sense.

Off we went to the autobahn. I couldn't wait to drive as fast as I could. It was so nice driving in such organized traffic. I gladly used my turn signal to move to the fast lane. But when I did, the car sped up, with no turn signal indicator. hmmm. I just sped away in the lane. Now it was time to move to the slow lane and I flipped down the turn signal device to move left... and the car slowed way down. Ahkkk! Too slow! So I stepped on the gas and moved on. This was making me crazy. The turn signal indicator didnt work! And the car had some sort of bizarre speed up/slow down thing happening with the turn signal.

We got to the meetings and enjoyed a nice lunch (thanks Adnan!). It was time to drive around now. But I was a bit nervous about the signal/acceleration problem. We got into the car (which was really nice otherwise) and started driving, and then it hit me! I was using the cruise control as the turn signal!!! DUH. Things worked much better after that realization. The turn signal DID work and the car accelerated only when I wanted it to.

Irish Music Episode
Mark and i were in Kilorglin (small town in County Kerry Ireland where my family lives) and wanted to listen to tradition Irish music as we had in Dublin. Cousin Jamesy said he would check out the music scene to find out where to go - remember, this is a small town. But in Ireland, every other business is a pub with music potential. Jamesy found a concert, in progress, at a small church that had been converted to an arts studio for music. We sat down during the break and found that there were about 12 other audience members, and a few musicians.

These musicians played traditional instruments and sang some lively songs. At one point i looked at mark who was making a face. What is it, I asked. His response - That man is killing my donkey.

I think Mark likes Irish music in small doses. After all, he stood up in a pub in Dublin and sang to the Irish musicians and pub crawlers who had been enjoying their Guinness for several hours. He sang in Turkish and it went over quite well, resulting in the singing of even more Irish music. He seemed to be ok with that...

Kissing Episodes
You may know that greetings vary by country. Since we were visiting friends and family, kissing was an expected part of the greetings. But, what kind of kiss and how many became the question. In Germany, a one cheek kiss worked. But in the Netherlands, the 3 cheek kiss (side to side 3 times) was the norm. And in Ireland, with family, the lips kiss was it.

So, you can imagine how confusing it got when I forgot what country I was in and mixed up the single, multiple cheek, and lips kisses. From a distance, it probably looked like a rare bird mating dance, making appearances in countries across Europe.