Vacation etiquette

At some point during this blogging hobby of mine, I will have the uncontrollable and undeniable urge to spew forth advice concerning any number of subjects or situations.  As some of you read through this, you may think this sounds a lot like complaining.  And to you, I say begone!  If you can't read this and mistakenly see it for the fake advice that it is, you won't genuinely appreciate it as such. 

Since I'm here in our nation's capital, an enormous melting pot of both residents and tourists, I decided to take this opportunity to slowly stick my big toe in and test the water.  This will be my trial run at giving "advice".

Picture ruiners:  This city is filled with national museums, historical sites, amazing architecture, and beautiful landscaping.  Everyone has crazy ridiculous cameras and 12 pound lenses nowadays, so we take pictures of everything!  It's like we all suffer from short term memory loss and we can't remember things we have seen unless we capture physical proof.  Let’s try to follow a few simple rules of etiquette when taking pictures and/or are in the vicinity of others taking pictures.

 

1.      Don’t stand 2 inches in front of the statute or painting you are photographing thus eliminating any possibility that others can also take a picture as well.  Also, I’m sure your 12 pound lens has 10 x zoom on it, so you don’t really need to be that close.

2.    Don’t spend 5 minutes staring at and photographing said statute or painting, which also eliminates any possibility that others can take a picture and enjoy the statute or painting.  No one needs 43 pictures of the giant sloth skeleton at the Natural History Museum.

 

On a similar note, don’t decide that the best place for you to stop and take a rest is right in front of one of these statutes or paintings.  You are ruining the whole experience for all of us.

3.    Watch where you are walking!  No one wants you strolling into their family picture in front of the Lincoln Memorial or a blurry image of your arm in front of their sepia toned picture of the National Gallery of Art fountain.

 

Walkers:  This may sound odd... right?  How could I possibly complain... err, give advice... about people walking?  The way I see it, you should walk on the sidewalk the same way you drive on the road.  And don’t stroll down the middle of the sidewalk making others walk in the grass or the street. 

Sign disobeyers:  Even though you may not speak or have the ability to read English, there is no excuse for this behavior.  Most of the public places we visited had very simple signs with symbols telling everyone not to touch things or not to use photography.  You may not be able to read “Do Not Touch!” or “No Photography”, but a picture of a camera with a red slash through it is a universal symbol.  Don’t play dumb with the “foreign” card. 

Unruly children:  Oh yes...  you know who you are.  Did you really think that your children would behave in the middle of a museum gift shop or near the fountain at the World War II Memorial when they clearly don’t listen to a word you are saying?  There are signs at these sites requesting quiet, respectful behavior for a reason.  Your child throwing a temper tantrum ruins the experience for me and everyone else there trying to relish in the moment.

 

 

If your child cannot behave, and you are incapable of quieting them, remove them from the environment.  This is plain and simple.  I realize that you and your children would also like to play the tourist role and see the sites, but it’s completely unfair for you to ruin everyone else’s vacation.  My only request is that you respect your fellow tourists.

Now that I have provided you with some simple rules of vacation etiquette, please feel free to share your most ridiculous vacation stories! 

A girl walks into a pole...

Stop me if you've heard this one...

I love telling stories, albeit with some (okay, sometimes much) exaggeration.  I possess the crafts of creativity and imagination, and I tend to embellish just a wee bit.  One of my favorite childhood stories is about my sister.

One summer, our family went on vacation at Pike Lake in the Upper Peninsula.  I was about 10 or 11, my sister was 5 or 6.  We had our own dock on the lake in front of our cabin and Dad would set up shop at the end and fish with us.  It is my recollection that one afternoon, I was out fishing with my Dad and my sister wanted desperately to come fish with us.  I'm confident that the cabin must have been on fire or Mom was trying to feed her veal patties for dinner, because my sister came barreling down the hill toward the dock at break neck speed.

Now, I've taken an educational psychology course and have quite an extensive knowledge of fine motor skills in children.  Based on this, I would have expected my sister's small muscle movements and hand/eye coordination to be fully developed by age 5.  Unfortunately, I was wrong.

It's important for you to understand the context of the situation.  The dock, being in such close proximity to the actual lake, inconveniently had water on it.  This is the only factor that potentially makes this story seem plausible.  Here is my version of the play-by-play.  I suggest that you imagine this occurring in slow motion... it's so much funnier that way. 

I vaguely remember someone yelling for my sister to slow down.  That was my cue to really focus on what was happening behind me.  As I watched, my sister proceeded to run down the hill, gaining momentum as she neared the dock.  I vividly remember that she was wearing a gray, zip up sweatshirt and jeans.  That doesn't seem relevant now, but clothes add weight...

At the last possible second, and in what appeared to be an intentional manner, my sister ran straight off the dock, falling face first into the water.  It was like she went stiff... petrified.  Maybe Draco Malfoy was hiding in the bushes and performed the "Petrificus Totalus" spell on her... who knows.  For what seemed like forever, she just laid there face down in the water, which was only about 4 inches deep.  She had to have hit the bottom, and just thinking about what that must have felt like and remembering what it looked like, makes me laugh!  Then, she stood up and immediately started bawling.  She ran straight up the hill to Mom.  Hopefully she still avoided the veal patties...

My sister had a tendency to be a natural comedian.  That's my polite way of saying that she was really good at making us laugh... at her.  The whole family went to Six Flags in Chicago about 4 years after the dock incident.  The night before we went to the park, we went to a nearby mall for dinner and shopping.  Unfortunately, the construction of this mall was such that there were poles strategically placed right in the middle of all of the hallways.  I'm not sure why these hallways needed structural reinforcement and they weren't aesthetically pleasing, so there really was no purpose for them.

As we rounded a corner, we all parted to avoid the pole in front of us but my sister pushed onward.  It's like she was being a martyr.  There was no attempt to even shield her face... probably due to the lack of hand/eye coordination.  You know that sound your frying pan makes when you drop it in the sink?  It echoed down the hallway in both directions.  Once again, she escaped any real injury.  

In closing, I want to say that while it may seem like I'm making fun of my sister, I love that girl and I only tell stories about the people that I love.  Even though this picture is not relevant to these two stories, it is so hilarious and I just had to share it with you all!  My sister used to put on my Mom's clothes, stuff toys in her chest, and walk around the house imitating her.  Just another example of why I love that girl!