We all need to laugh now and then, AKA accurate but pointless advice

most days London gets no rain.

An old method of personal transportation in Chicago was parachutes (or a bed sheet) to take advantage of the status as the Windy City

Advice from a friend for our trip to London, "Buy some chestnuts from the guy on the bridge."

When people rate airports by the quality of the shopping in the airport. Yeah sure, that's how I plan my itineraries too ;)

Hank, I will confess that when I'm going to have a long layover after a trip outside the US, the presence of Chick-fil-A is a factor in choosing the airport for the layover. It's the fast food version of comfort food.

That's totally awesome! Bun Pickles Chicken Pickles Bun for the win 😁

You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish.

Dogs can't operate MRI scanners - but catscan

I stayed at Hotel X in City Y, of Country Z... and it was only the equivalent of 750 Euros a night: It was an excellent experience. The staff were so very attentive, and the room had a beautiful view. :)

Hank, I find your post offensive. Some of us prioritize airport shopping. Don't judge. Maybe I'll report you. I was a grade-school hall monitor. Just so you know.

Cala, same with you. Are the chickens free-range?

Plan your trip down to the minute.

You don’t want to waste a single second of your exciting adventure sitting around Googling “things to do in Paris,” do you?! NO! That’s for inexperienced travelers and flakes, which you are NOT.

You’ve got a schedule to keep, and absolutely nothing will deter you from following it TO THE LETTER!

This is so tempting, but I know I will just get into trouble.

Some ways I found to save money in Europe:
Eat less
Stay in a cheaper hotel
Walk
Don't go shopping
Go to the tourist attractions with free admission

Always travel light, but make sure you bring extra...???

The trains in Europe are so simple to use, but know you can't buy tickets on the train, make sure you understand the ticket price shown is only half fare, stay away from xxxx website and app, be sure to only use the site of the country you are in at the starting point and oh yeah, if you don't get your ticket stamped you'll pay a huge fine, but otherwise they are so simple to use.

Eat where locals eat! Provided you can tell the difference between a group of European tourists and locals or RS tourists who are told to dress as locals to blend in.

A funny story about a museum.
This didn't happen in Europe but something like it could,
Years ago I went with my Parents and my Aunt and Uncle to the USAF museum (Airforce)
I was a history minor and my passion was military history and I love aircraft so I know a lot about them.

My dad was in the Army in the Korean war but my Uncle was in WW2 and was ground crew on P-38s. Do he wanted to go and he was getting ill so i went with them.

So here we are in the Museum and it is absolutely HUGE, as it houses even the big bombers and the aircraft the President flew on.

So my uncle is in a power scooter and i am pushing my Aunt in a wheelchair while my Folks walk along with us.

As we walk though the museum staring with the fist aircraft the Army had and going on through WW1 and into WW2, we are now in our third hanger (they are connected) and I am talking about each aircraft ir display if i can think of anything interesting to add.Such as the fact that our local Airbase was named after the first US military officer to die in an aircraft. and by this point we are into the WW2 aircraft such as what my uncle worked on. And i am telling a story about on bomber and its knick name of “ The Baltimore @#$&* (lady of the evening) and ut was called this because it was built outside Baltimore and its wings were so small it had “no visible means of support”. And how a lot of crews trained on it in Tampa and it was joked that they put “one a Day in Tampa Bay” as it was an unpopular aircraft to fly. No sooner did i finish calling the bomber the Baltimore…@#$&* Then some middle aged lady qho i have never seen before asks me a question about the aircraft. I turn around and see her and at least 8 or 9 others that i don't recognize standing in a group around my parents.

they were at least three different groups and it Turns out they thought I was a tour guide! Most of them had bern following us for the past Hour!

We figured it out because on lady ask “what the name if the tour guide was” They thought i worked for the Museum. It was funny seeing the look on the people Faces when my mother said I was not a tour guide i was her son. :). I told them they were welcome yo tag along if they liked or ask questions and most if them stayed with us until we stopped for lunch in the museums cafe,

So it is funny what can happen

Next funny story.
While in The German speaking part of Switzerland on the third day in a hotel i had the young lady behind the counter ask if my Dad was a retired German Language Professor. I asked why she wondered and she said because my dads German was so “formal and correct” and his pronunciation was so good that he sounded like a German Language Professor.

I told her no he wasn't and left it at that. I didn't have the heart to tell her he was a retired Mechanic, that missed a ton of school because of WW2 and the bombing of Hamburg and then ended his schooling early yo become an apprentice mechanic. Or that he hardly spoke German in the last 20 years and had left Germany in 49.

So he was basically just talking German as they spoke it about 70 years ago!

My dad got a chuckle out of that as he had been concerned/wondering what the locals thought of his German as he was so out of practice that he had actually studied up on the language a but before the trip. And that he had been thinking in English for about 60 years. So he had to translate in his mind.

Don't go there. There are too many tourists there.

At the end of a guided tour of a local history museum in Haarlem, Netherlands where the guide spoke to us for 10 minutes entirely in German - "we're from Australia, not Austria".

Nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded.

The food in that restaurant is terrible -- and such small portions!

So, douglas, even if you weren’t a licensed guide at the Air Force museum, those ladies did get a tote. Did they give you any tips, or buy you a beverage after all the talking you’d done?

And I wonder if the Baltimore plane had a provocative woman panted on it, like other bombers of the time? What was she called?

Tip: Get a moneybelt in a neutral color. That way, it goes with everything when you wear it on the outside, for easy access.

I am sure SOME of the WW2 bombers of that class had a provocative woman painted on them. But the one in the USAF Museum dies not. That Aircraft is called Shooting In or some such IIRC, But it was the whole type of bomber that got the bad rep and the bad Nick name. Odd it was arguably the safest US bomber type to be a crewman on in the war.

As for my “tourists” that I guided around…. Yes the did offer to by me a drink and they only continued to follow once I told them they were more then welcome to.
All joking aside I did get someone at the Museum to try and recruit me as a guide, but I live over 4 hours away from the place.
Still my personality my love of trivia and what have you means I like playing tour guide. As long as it is a short tour and I get to never see the tourists again. Playing guide in a Castle or a museum would be fun. I think the “Beef eaters” at the Tower of London must in general have a blast (except for dealing with idiots, always a hazard in a public job) But i was not disciplined enough to put in that long in any military (and of course I am from the US).

I did a tour of the Tower of London with my father on our last trip and the Yoeman warden guiding us was picking on my father from start to finish. At the end of the tour the too we’re talking like old chums. And compare rank. My dad was not carrier military but he did leave Korea after the war ended as a Sergeant. And those to talked a bit about that (about 10 to 15 minutes, the yeomen warden was supposed to be using for his break) those folks can be a lot of fun, But I hear tell they don’t do the tour anymore they just all stay put and talk about the same area and you walk around,.. Not sure that would be the same thing.

Don't ever set foot in Naples, Rome, Sicily or New York City...it's just too dangerous...the Mafia will be waiting for you.

Douglas: great story!
A similar thing happened to me in Italy in 2012.
My friend and I had seen a man in the audience at a concert in Lucca and remarked that he looked a bit like Dustin Hoffman.
The next day we took a trip to Cinque Terre, involving a couple of train changes.
We saw the same man on every train, and all around Cinque Terre, and at the station on return...he seemed to be following us!
The next day we were moving on to Florence, and there at the train station was the man and his wife.
We started chatting, then sat together on the train.
He said he had started following behind us because, he pointed to me, I "looked like I knew where I was going and what I was doing!"
We had a good laugh, and I kept in touch with them by email for a few years.
They were from Australia and hadn't been to Italy before.

douglas, you said “ Odd it was arguably the safest US bomber type to be a crewman on in the war.”. Maybe having such short wingspan that the plane had no visible means of support actually meant there was much less for an attack place to shoot at, and less to come into contact with flak.

Speaking of aircraft, another bit of pointless advice to throw out . . .

If you’re going to fly somewhere on vacation, you’ll need to get tickets for a flight. There are many airlines, and many airports. You will go high in the air.

S J, I wonder if the man's name was Dirk Gently. https://dirkgently.fandom.com/wiki/Zen_navigation

I knew a guy who worked in Japan for a while, he was over 6’ by a few inches.
He took mass transit of some form (train, subway, whatever it was) home from his office building. He was pretty consistent on the time he
eft the office and he said the locals seamed very friendly as they tended to gather around him. that was until he found out they were using him as a lamd mark to meat up. as in “meat me near the tall American”.

The reason no one like the Bomber and why it had small wings and why it was safer then others are somewhat tied together, It was faster then most light bombers and had smaller wings, as a result it took off and landed faster then other light bombers. The takeoff and landing speed is what gave inexperienced pilots training to fly it fits. But the increased speed help it be safer.

"Oh, you're going to CITY? You have to see XYZ."

No, I don't. I have zero interest in XYZ and won't waste my time there just to tick a box.

Hey, douglas, that’s an interesting story about the tall, punctual American. He stood out to the Japanese. After the information about the bomber plane from some decades earlier as well, that suggests some more Pointless Advice:

In peacetime, if working in Japan, be the tall American.

But if you’re on the crew of a bomber, and if your country’s at war with Japan, don’t be the tall American.

I just noticed the comment about shopping at an Airport. Not sure about Shopping but eating at an airport is important. I was on a team that designed a number of restaurants in a num dr of airports.
It was that. work that was at least partially what paid for one of my trips to Europe. So to some at least it is important… :)

“Eating at an airport is important,” but eat light. You don’t want to weigh the plane down.

When traveling international, be sure to take your passport. And a good idea to make sure it has not expired too.