Travel Oddities Just for Fun

Here are some short little travel details that just seem odd to me. These are collected from friends, clients, agents and sometimes from articles on the World Wide Web.

• The Pantheon is the largest building from ancient Rome that survives intact.
• Where else but among travellers are bookings made on blind faith that a big company like an airline holds your interests at heart. The traveller has no idea what everything will cost after adding in the cost of a checked bag, a seat reservation confirmation fee plus charges for best legroom, a day-old some kind f meat substitute sandwich and a bottle of water. The flier will pay more than expected, in all likelihood a lot more. Isn’t that strange behaviour?
• Boarding a cruise, security persons take a five-inch knife from a passenger. Later, The waiter handed out steak knives to our table. All had six-inch blades!
• French was the official language of England for over 600 years. One opinion. Another point of view.
• In Japan hotels, thermos of hot water and bags of green tea are in every room. For coffee call the rather expensive room service or buy very sweet coffee in a can from a vending machine. Iced coffee in a can has been popular in Japan since 1945. Take your own instant coffee if you need that caffeine start to your day.
• The Hobbit Hotel has an outside design that copies the “Lord of the Rings” movies exterior sets (click for image). Inside is the modern and comfort that most guests seek.

Do you feel safer in a train?

It seems the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has a unique device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes. The device is a gun that launches a dead chicken at a plane’s windshield at approximately the speed the plane flies.

The theory is that if the windshield doesn’t crack from the carcass impact, it’ll survive a real collision with a bird during flight. It seems the British were very interested in this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new, speedy locomotive they’re developing.

They borrowed the FAA’s chicken launcher, loaded the chicken and fired. The ballistic chicken shattered the windshield, went through the engineer’s chair, broke an instrument panel and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine cab. The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test to see if everything was done correctly.

Editor’s note:
I just hope there are not too many turkeys testing with chickens frozen or not. I couldn’t resist this old story. It still gave me a chuckle.

The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation: “Use a thawed chicken.”

Monaco Exists because a Grimaldi Rules

If Monaco’s ruling house of Grimaldi should ever be without an heir (male or female), the country will cease to be a sovereign state. It’s a quirky world. England has had several houses take the throne at different times, but not little Monaco.

The fortress Monaco was established under Grimaldi rule in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the fifteenth century the rules of succession were formally established by John Grimaldi, lord of Monaco, in his will (1454). It has had a colourful history ever since.

The Grimaldi rules were bent to get a Grimaldi on the throne in 1949.

• Louis II Matignon-Grimaldi of Monaco adopts Charlotte Louvet, his illegitimate daughter, in 1919, b. 1870 d. 1949
  • Pierre de Polignac Investiture of Polignac Dynasty under the name Grimaldi. married (1920) Charlotte Louvet b. 1898 d. 1977
• Prince Rainier III Polignac-Grimaldi of Monaco, grandson of Louis, assumed power on Louis II death in 1949 b. 1923 d. 2005.
  • [Antoinette de Massy b. 1920 has issue]
• Prince Albert II Polignac-Grimaldi of Monaco, b. 1958, succeeded his father Prince Ranier III, 2005.
  • [Caroline b. 1957 has issue]
  • [Stéphanie b. 1965 She has issue]

More Reading:

• The genealogy of the Grimaldi line in Monaco
• More information on this fascinating state is here
• A blog about Monaco’s monarchy
• Monaco facts and figures here

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Image via Wikipedia

You Know You’re a Mom When:

• Your feet stick to the kitchen floor… and you don’t care.
• When the kids are fighting, you threaten to lock them in a room together and not let them out until someone’s bleeding.
• You can’t find your cordless phone, so you ask a friend to call you, and you run around the house madly, following the sound until you locate the phone downstairs in the laundry basket.
• You spend an entire week wearing sweats.
• Your idea of a good day is making it through without a child leaking bodily fluids on you.
• Popsicle become a food staple.
• Your favorite television show is a cartoon.
• Peanut butter and jelly is eaten at least in one meal a day.
• You’re willing to kiss your child’s boo-boo, regardless of what body part it happens to be on.
• Your baby’s pacifier falls on the floor and you give it back to her after you suck the dirt off of it because you’re too busy to wash it off.
• Your kids make jokes about farting, burping, pooping, etc, and you think it’s funny.
• You’re so desperate for adult conversation that you spill your guts to the telemarketer that calls and he hangs up on you!
• Spit is your number one cleaning agent.
• You’re up each night until 10 PM vacuuming, dusting, wiping, washing, drying, loading, unloading, shopping, cooking, driving, flushing, ironing, sweeping picking up, changing sheets, changing diapers, bathing, helping with homework, paying bills, budgeting, clipping coupons, folding clothes, putting to bed, dragging out of bed, brushing, chasing, buckling, feeding (them, not you), plus swinging, playing baseball, bike riding, pushing trucks, cuddling dolls, rollerblading, basketball, football, catch, bubbles, sprinklers, slides, nature walks, coloring, crafts, jumping rope, plus raking, trimming, planting, edging, mowing, gardening, painting, and walking the dog. You get up at 5:30 AM and you have no time to eat, sleep, drink or go to the bathroom, and yet you still managed to gain 10 pounds.
• In your bathroom there is toothpaste on the light fixtures, water all over the floor, a dog drinking out of the toilet and body hair forming a union to protest unsafe working conditions.
• You buy cereal with marshmallows in it.
• The closest you get to gourmet cooking is making Rice Krispie bars.
• You count the sprinkles on each kid’s cupcake to make sure they ‘re equal.
• You want to take out a contract on the kid who broke your child’s favorite toy and made him/her cry.
• You have time to shave only one leg at a time.
• You hide in the bathroom to be alone.
• You child throws up and you catch it.
• Someone else’s kid throws up at a party and you keep eating.
• You consider finger paint to be a controlled substance.
• You mastered the art of placing food on a plate without anything touching.
• Your child insists that you read “Once Upon a Potty” out loud in the lobby of the doctor office, and you do it.
• You hire a sitter because you haven’t been out with your husband ages, then spend half the night talking about and checking on the kids.
• You hope ketchup is a vegetable because it’s the only one your child eats.
• You can’t bear the thought of your son’s first girlfriend.
• You hate the thought of his wife even more.
• You find yourself cutting your husband’s sandwiches into unusual shapes.
• You fast-forward through the scene when the hunter shoots Bambi’s mother.
• You obsess when your child clings to you upon parting during his first month at school, then obsess when he skips in without looking back the second time.
• You can’t bear to give away baby clothes — it seems so final.
• You hear your mother’s voice coming out of your mouth when you say, “Not in your good clothes!”
• You stop criticizing the way your mother raised you.
• You read that the average five-year-old asks 437 questions a day and feel proud that your kid is “above average.”
• You say at least once a day, “I’m not cut out for this job,” but you know you wouldn’t trade it for anything.

[Source: Chicken Soup For The Soul]

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When my son told me about a funny incident in the Vancouver airport, he added it’s probably not true. In checking online the first link was to the Toronto Star article “Air Canada learns that hockey trumps flying” It’s a typically Canadian story.

What’s the funniest, strangest reason you have encountered for a runway take off delay?

• A giant rat?
• Delayed and prosecuted because of blindness?
• Can’t deice plane? Oh okay, it’s Florida.
• Secretary called in a bomb threat to delay the takeoff because her boss was running late.
• Passenger Avoids Delay By Fixing Plane Himself.
• Horses, deer, cows, etc. discussed.

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