Lost In Translation - Or Not

Church signs can be lots of fun to read and I love the humor behind many of them. For instance one I passed this week: Come back! He's still alive! Obviously a call to those who only go to church on Christmas and Easter. As we travel to countries where English is not the everyday language and signs need to be translated for English speaking travelers they can get quite humorous as well. Here are a few I found reported by other travelers.

At a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard.

Information on a hotel air conditioner in Japan: Cooles and heates. If you want condition of warm air in your room please control yourself.

Advertisement from a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.

On the box of a clockwork toy made in China: Guaranteed to work throughout its useful life.

But my favorite sign, even though I think it translated well, was the one we found in Turkey that was over a table full of wristwatches. The sign read: Fake Watches! Ah, finally. Truth in advertising.

Be Careful What You Ask For

This story made the rounds

a year ago probably while we were diving in Grand Cayman. I'm just now catching up to it. The moral of the story is: be careful what you ask for.

Apparently when you book a room online at the Woodlands Resort and Conference Center there is a box that asks if you need any special service. An enterprising young man with a great sense of humor thought it would be fun and would create a few laughs for the staff if he requested something silly. So he asked to have three red M&Ms placed on the bed. Not a whole package just three. One for him. One for his fiance. And one to split later if they got hungry. Then, just because he likes pictures of bacon (or so he said), he wanted a picture of bacon placed on the pillow.

Much to his surprise, there on the bed when he arrived were the three M&Ms and a picture of bacon. Apparently the staff has a good sense of humor as well.

Dustin Wray, the traveler with the sense of humor, was interviewed on ABC News and said that once his post of what happened went viral, the hotel offered him a free stay. The manager was just happy that he hadn't asked to have the M&Ms wrapped in the bacon.