"I didn't even realize this is what I had been saying in French until I returned to the States..."
Thanks to language barriers and different norms and customs, travel blunders are to be expected. Well, Redditor flamingoals1 asked, "Share your embarrassing travel misunderstandings to make me feel better?" Here are their stories, including some from members of the BuzzFeed Community.
1. "I’m a Canadian, and I was traveling in Switzerland. I had a very embarrassing time trying to buy veggies. Here, you have to weigh and sticker your veggies yourself in the produce department. In Canada, the cashier weighs and prices the veggies for you at the till..."
"With my extremely limited German, I could not understand what the Swiss cashier was explaining as she refused to let me buy unstickered veggies... Eventually, she called over another worker who took my veggies back to the produce area and stickered them for me. Meanwhile, I was holding up the line at the till. The workers were super kind, helpful, and polite, and they tried not to laugh at my mistake 😅 but I was so embarrassed!"
2. "I was an exchange student living in Paris. My French was improving a lot pretty quickly..."
"...At my prim grandmother's request, I arranged to meet an old friend who lived at a very posh address. I was holding my own at a restaurant and speaking French well... until we discussed dessert. She asked (in French) if I wanted cream or sugar on my strawberries. I said, 'je m'en fous' (I don't care, I thought). But it basically means, 'I don't give a f***. I didn't know this until I returned to the States."
3. "When I was young and stupid, I kept my passport and foreign currency together. I was going back to the UK, and I handed the passport with a stack of money still in it, so I looked like I was trying to bribe the officer."
4. "I love traveling to Indonesia, and eventually, I figured I had no more excuses and began learning Bahasa Indonesia. All proud of the few sentences I spoke, I ensured I would always tell people 'see you later' upon leaving the shop, hotel, and/or restaurant. It took me four days and many confused looks to double-check what I was saying. I meant to say 'sampai nanti ya' (see you later), but instead, I told people 'sampai manti ya,' which beautifully translates to 'until you die.' Oops."
5. "Showing up at a hotel on the other side of the world the day before my actual reservation. I've done it twice. I may be calendar-challenged."
6. "Turns out SJC is NOT the airport code for San Jose, Costa Rica. Rather, it's San Jose, California. I figured this one out too late."
7. "When we first moved to the US and barely knew any English, my mom got her first job and became quite friendly with her first boss. I forgot the occasion, but she bought her boss a greeting card that said 'with sympathy,' which my mom didn’t realize was for a death or loss. She thought it meant 'with appreciation' or something of that nature."
8. "In Russia, I wanted to buy meat from the deli counter. I didn't fancy trying to explain the weight I wanted, so I pointed at some pre-packaged meat trays behind a glass counter. She looked at me confused and told me to 'take it,' in Russian. I was like, 'I can't, it's behind glass.' I went like this for a while until I thought I'd demonstrate and put my hand on the glass. It wasn't glass, just fresh air. The glass counter stopped before the pre-packaged items."
9. "I traveled for over ten hours for a sold-out festival in Vegas. All major hotels were sold out because of it, and I realized I booked the hotel for 2024 instead of 2023."
10. "When I had just arrived in the Philippines, I couldn't find my friend. A cop (perhaps a security guard) asked if they could help. I told him what was happening, and he offered to call my friend, which I accepted. We made contact with my friend, and I found her. The cop extends his hand, which I took as wanting a high five. So I gave him five and ran off. It wasn't until later that I realized he wanted a tip. 😂"
11. "Nothing too embarrassing, but I still laugh about it; I went to a fancy restaurant in Kyoto once, and the hostess put down a little bowl of what I guessed was soup/broth on the table, so I drank it. She returned about a minute later with some tempura and seemed surprised that I drank the dipping sauce intended for it. She was like, 'oh. did you like it?'"
12. "Embarazada means pregnant in Spanish. I lived in Costa Rica for a while, and a friend started dating a local guy. When she met his family, her Spanish wasn’t great, and she was embarrassed that she couldn’t communicate easily with them. She says, 'Estoy embarazada,' which she thought meant 'I’m embarrassed,' but actually means 'I’m pregnant.''
13. Just yesterday I asked a Spanish member of my team how they were feeling because I knew they were unwell. When they told me they were 'constipated,' I just thought, 'That's more information than most people would tell me.' Turns out, in Spanish 'constipado' means you have a cold."
14. "I’m an American who planned a two-week trip to Newfoundland a few years ago. My husband and I intended to spend four days at the end of our trip in the capital city of St. John’s. Many months before our trip, I researched the town, got familiar with the layout, and decided to reserve four nights in an apartment in a charming boutique hotel away from the water but near bakeries and shops..."
"... I corresponded with the hotel throughout the summer, arranging for parking and selecting which unit I'd stay in. The hotel had a weekly newsletter they sent me about happenings in their town, and I read it in anticipation. We had a wonderful time exploring the island, and at the end of the trip, we arrived in St. John's, but we couldn't find our hotel anywhere.
We had the street address, and although we found the street it was on, there was no hotel on it. Finally, we turned on the internet and asked Google for directions to the hotel, only to learn we were 24 hours away by car. The charming hotel was in St. John, New Brunswick... not St. John’s, Newfoundland. The owners were lovely and gave me a complete refund. They said people always make that mistake (they were probably just being nice, but it made me feel better)."